Countless Souls
by Ninjee
Summary: A group of stories, drabbles, and nonsense/crackfics concerning the characters of Soul Eater. Teen to be safe? Most will concern Kid, Liz, and Patty, but there will be sections that are focused on others.
1. talks like a gentleman

_You sit there in your heartache, waitin' on some beautiful boy to, save you from your old ways, you pray forgiveness...  
'Cause he doesn't look a thing like Jesus, but he talks like a gentleman, like you imagined when you were young..._  
~The Killers, When You Were Young

* * *

A long time ago, she'd been lost. Lost on Brooklyn's winding streets, and ripped apart by the growl of her hungry stomach. Most of the time she hadn't given any thought to God.

But that last, horrible week, when they hadn't had _anything,_ she'd made an exception.

When Patty fell into a restless sleep, she'd gotten on her knees and prayed like hell. _Please save us._

And then, they'd seen a rich kid, unarmed, his hands in his pockets, looking like he was looking for something. It was like God had answered, and she grinned and gave chase.

And when this boy defeated them with a flick of his wrist, she'd cried at the injustice. Not a gift. _We're going to die._ she'd thought, maybe even said, and they'd both just laid there together, Patty hugging her and shell-shocked by the fact that Liz, the unbreakable Liz, was crying, because that was what meant that it was hopeless. If Patty cried, it could get better. But if Liz's control on her fear and worry broke, then it was over.

If she'd known, then, that this boy was a Grim Reaper, here searching for the two vicious killers The Thompson Sisters, as a favor to his father, she might not have tried to mug him.  
_

He'd realized who they were after running, and spent the rest of the day searching for them, but they were talented in the shadows.

It was a miracle that he'd let slip away. He was supposed to be a Reaper! _Wothless, filth, trash. I'm not worth the trouble. _Surely he could find two girls.

_Elizabeth and Patricia Thompson,_ the file had read, along with newpaper clippings of the things they'd stolen and the people they'd hurt and killed. _Also known as the Devils of Brooklyn. One of then is a weapon, it is not yet known which. The weapon in question is a small handgun, that fires soul wavelength bullets that can kill a human. _

They weren't Kishin Eggs, not yet, which was a surprise. They'd had plenty of chances to eat human souls and had probably been hungry enough, judging on how thin they were. He'd been here to dispatch them before they _could_ become Eggs, perhaps even offer them a place at the DWMA.

Finally he did find them, and he'd seen Elizabeth transform into Patricia's waiting hands. It had been Patricia, before, who was the weapon. They...they were both...?

_Left. Right. Left. Right. Left. Right. Perfect!_

So he'd saved them from the approaching mob, thinking only of that _glorious_ symmetry, and held out his hands to offer them a home and food.

Patricia, the younger, had looked ecstatic. "Liz! We're gonna be okay!"

Elizabeth had collapsed to her knees in exhaustion. He'd waited for her reply.  
_

Just like she'd prayed for. Just liked she'd wished for. Just like she'd imagined back when they were both kids, and they still lived with Mom. When she'd closed her eyes and wished desperately on stars that someday someone would come, someone who would give them food and nice clothes and a home. Someone to get them out of there.

True, he wasn't any kind of angel.

But he was close enough.

"Yes." she whispered. "We'll come with you."

* * *

_A/N: These are all going to be Soul Eater drabbles, probably not very long at all. I write them when ever I get inspired by songs or TV shows or anything, really. So this will be a collection of mindless fluff, stupidity, and maybe some angst. Who knows? (Also, Excalibur is the default picture until I find something better.)_

_The song that inspired me was written by and belongs to The Killers. Also, Soul Eater isn't mine, much as I wish it was. I would've made two seasons._

_Please R&R!_


	2. protectors

Liz and Patty collapsed, arms around each other, Patty laughing with relief.

"That was sooo scary!" the younger Thompson squealed. Liz managed a smile, looking Patty and herself and Kid over, checking for injuries. Kid's wrists had been hit, and he'd dropped them, both of them tranforming back to fight on their own for a moment while Soul and Maka came running. To Liz, wielding Patty, it had been awful. She'd gotten used to being the weapon, and for one scary moment, she hadn't known what to do.

"I don't know if I can do this anymore..." she felt herself whisper. _I'm not brave. I 've never been brave. I can't do this. I'm too scared._

"What do you mean?" Patty asked, looking up at her, eyes wide.

"I mean...this." she said, waving a hand around them. "It's so dangerous sometimes, and...I don't know why it has to be us that gets hurt...and..." She trailed off, feeling stupid. "I mean, why are we fighting? What's it for?"

"Sis." Patty said softly. "Do you remember what you told me when we first started fighting? A long time ago?"

_Patty shivered. "Sis...Is it right to kill those things? I don't like it. You said if we came here we wouldn't have to kill people no more..."_

Liz slid a comforting arm around Patty's shoulders. "Don't think of it as killing them, Patty. We don't kill anymore. We protect._ That's what it's for."_

"You told me that we were protectors now."

_Patty wrinkled her nose. "What's the diff'ence? We're still killin' stuff."_

"No, we're not." Liz told her. "These aren't people, Patty. They're monsters. Like nightmares come alive. And they're gonna kill more people and take their souls, if we don't stop them."

"You said that if we stopped the nightmares, the people around us wouldn't get 'em. We used to kill to survive, and we killed people. But we were fixin' that."

_"See, Patty, everytime we kill one of those things, one of the people we killed disappears. And also, less people loose their moms and dads and babies. So things get better."_

"Killin' these things erased the past, or at least made it even."

_"Now, instead of hurting the world, we protect it. Like how Kid's always goin' on about symmetry. Makes it even, ya know?"_

"We're protectors now, Liz. That's what we're fightin' for." Patty held out her hand and helped her sister up. "Now let's go home."

Liz smiled. "Thanks, Patty."

Patty blinked at her. "What for? It was you that told me it, sis. Thank yourself!"

Liz laughed, and they went to help Kid, who was the whole time trying to bandage his hurt wrists symetrically.

* * *

_A/N: Yep. More. XD Not very good, but oh well. _

_R&R please!_


	3. melodies

For as long as Soul had been alive, he'd heard the music. The chords had twisted around each other, forming the melodies of the world, good and bad. And he'd played them all-the ones that were a flower field in springtime and the ones that were thunderstorms, muggers and killers and ballet dancers alike.

But his parents hadn't liked it, and they'd told him only to play the good ones, the ones that were safe and warm and happy. And he hadn't understood, because they wanted to be played and that was life after all so why not show the way it was? But his playing, the darkness of it, even so young as he was, scared his family, his parents and brothers, and they left him alone, disapproving, because if the child liked the dark songs he played, well, that was mad. And so Soul's songs grew darker, because there was no one who seemed to care. The good in the melodies twisting in his ears seemed to shut out until he could only hear the bad.

His brother Wes could hear the melodies too, all of them, though he only played the good. He was the only one who understood a little, Wes, and he was the one who let Soul experience some of the happy songs again, the feeling of acceptance. But of course it wasn't enough.

And when he found out he was a weapon he left, with only a note on his older brother's pillow, with notes written in a scribble that when played were an apology.

Then, his future partner had found him in the DWMA's music room, and asked what he was doing and who he was. And he'd played for her, telling her, "This is who I am," and letting the notes speak for themselves. And she'd understood-which had been wondrous in itself, because Wes hadn't understood, not fully, he'd only excepted, because Wes didn't get why Soul played those songs, didn't understand the music he played was a reflection of his own sadness, no, Wes only excepted his little brother and didn't try to puzzle out the meaning of the music. But she, she understood, because she knew the dark in the world, because perhaps she didn't know what it was like to be considered crazy and freaky by your own family, to hate it so much you left, but she had experienced the pain and worry and _this is my fault_ of her parent's fighting, and the confusion of trying to find your mom and dad after a nightmare but seeing a lady who _was not her mother_ lying in the bed. She saw beyond, to the empty and dark soul that was him, and accepted and even liked it. Liked his music. Liked him.

And that feeling of _finally,_ finally having someone _get it,_ stayed with him as he told her what kind of weapon he was, and accepted her proposal of partnership.

She understood.

From then on, whenever he composed in his head, (he never went near pianos anymore, out of a weird fear that someone would hear and send him back home because they would realize who he was) whenever he wrote out his feelings and the twisting tunes of the world, the happy ones, the ones that were unshakably good, they were composed with her in mind, whether he knew it or not.

* * *

_A/N: Oh, hey, look at that, something good. Whodathunk, huh?_

_I don't own Soul Eater. Forgot the disclaimer in that last chapter, sorry :)_

_Please R&R!_


	4. candy (AU)

Soul sighed as he entered the café. _Dude, this better be important for you to wake me up earlier than necessary._ he thought irritably, cursing Kid and thinking of his warm bed, which of course was far away in his house. And it _really_ didn't help that Black*Star was being his normal annoying self. _At earlier than 7 in the morning._

Seven was an ungodly hour, he decided, just like Kid was always saying. School should start at eight or nine, or maybe even ten. That would rock.

When he heard, through the noise on his headphones, "Wow, Kid! Who'd have thought you'd be the one surrounded by chicks?" he looked up, his eyes bleary. He could vaguely see Kid, and like four girls, but he couldn't think. He collapsed in a chair at the counter and laid his head grimly on the countertop. He heard Kid stutteringly defending himself.

"Coffee." he choked. The girl behind the counter tsked sympathetically.

"Right, one java coming up." she said, a faint New York accent present in her voice. "Damn, you look dead on your feet." A few minutes later, she slid a highly caffeinated cup of joe down the counter to him. After a few sips, he could vaguely concentrate again. He started to hear Black*star's laughter at him, and shot him a glare. "You woke me up at 6:30, Kid. This better be good."

He slid off his headphones, and heard a voice he didn't recognize. "Oh, hey, I remember you guys. You were the one playing piano a couple nights ago." He glanced over, and almost choked on his coffee.

Holy shit, it was _her._The chick from the club.

He tore his eyes from her quickly, and glanced around at everyone else. Three other girls, two of them sisters, one with long black hair…

_She had short brown hair in pigtails…and green eyes…_

He shook his head. _Shut it._

"So, uh." he started. "Who are you people? I'm Soul."

"Oh yeah, you all never 'ficially met." the girl with the short blond hair said thoughtfully. "I forgot. Well, I'm Patty Thompson, and this is my sister Liz…"

"Charmed." Liz muttered, cleaning something up behind the counter, traces of sarcasm appearing in her voice.

"And that's Tsubaki I-Can't-Say-Her-Last-Name…"

The girl with the dark hair gave them all a wave. "My last name's Nakatsukasa." Her smile turned embarrassed. "I'm from Japan."

"Oh, so _that's_how ya say it. Oh well, I'll prob'y forget it again soon…anyways, that's Maka Albarn."

"Your father's the vice principal?" Kid asked interestedly. "My dad's the principal. It's weird we've never met before."

The two of them got into a non-interesting discussion about school, and since it turned out Liz like music too, he and Liz absently discussed pros and cons of jazz vs. plain old rock, Patty inserting her input into every conversation going on around her.

"Oh, yeah!" Maka blurted. "Patty, I sent your birthday present in the mail. A cotton-candy machine, because I'm terrible at keeping secrets and I'd probably tell you anyway."

"Really?" Patty squealed bouncing out from behind the counter to give Maka a bone-crushing hug. "Oh my god I love cotton candy!"

Liz chuckled. "You just made her day. Oh, and Patty? Please, please don't feed me any of that cotton candy."

"Cotton candy's _good_." Patty pouted. Liz gagged. "Ewwwwwww…not really."

Everyone looked at them for a little while while they argued about cotton candy.

Maka giggled. "You know, Patty, you're a little like cotton candy."

"Really?" This had apparently never occurred to Patty before.

"Yeah. You're sweet and, you know, cotton candy reminds me of summer and being a little kid, and those things remind me of you." Maka rested her chin on her fist.

"What about me?" Liz asked. "And Tsubaki? Do we have candies?"

"Sure." Maka shrugged. "Liz, you're sour Skittles, because sometimes you come off as sour but you aren't really. Tsubaki, you're more like truffles. They're beautiful and sweet."

"Oh yeah?" Black*Star was unimpressed. "Well, what about me?"

"Easy." Maka smirked. "Airheads, because you're pretty loud and out there, plus you're an airhead."

Black*star frowned. "I'll only accept that because I like Airheads."

"Kid's Junior Mints, because they're black and white like him." Patty giggled.

Kid made a face at her. "Patty, that could be considered discrimination."

"Aw, shaddup." Patty said cheerfully. "I'm only teasin' ya."

"I don't know what I am." Maka said. "I'm not sure about Soul, either."

He didn't let his disappointment show as they all left and headed to school together.

But then later in the day, just before lunch, there was a Starburst and a note taped to his locker.

Her handwriting was even and just a little loopy, on the ys and gs.

_Soul,  
I finally figured it out, you're a Starburst. It came to me when I remembered the saying about them-"a juicy contradiction."  
That's what you are-a contradiction.  
-Maka_

When she came to her locker after lunch, there was a chocolate bar without a wrapper, a piece of paper twined around it.

She felt a brief rush of disappointment-_Of course I'm only a dull old chocolate bar, nothing special in his eyes_-and then she looked at the note.

His handwriting was messy, but not a scrawl like most boys. She liked it.

**Maka, crack open the chocolate bar. The rest of the note's folded in this one. -S**

She did so, and there was caramel inside. She read the rest of the note.

**That's what you are, Maka, because you look normal, like you don't want people to pay attention to you, but on the inside, you're different. Special.  
Goddamn, it felt weird to write something like that. It'd make a good song though, I guess.  
By the way, why am I a contradiction exactly?  
-Soul**

She couldn't stop smiling the whole day.

_Soul,  
That was sweet of you to say. Seriously-I never thought of it that way.  
You're a contradiction because you look like you'd be one of the stupid popular cronies, but actually you're smart and musical. It makes me wonder how many other people I've stereotyped.  
By the way-you're really good at piano. You must really love music.  
-Maka_

**Maka,  
Oh, I guess I get it now. Weird-I never thought of it like that either. You probably haven't stereotyped too many, though, most of them are dumbasses. Black*star and Kid are cool, though. But they're the only ones.  
I do love music-more than anything.  
And actually, I was planning to ask you to go see a movie with me, but I checked, and the theaters don't sell caramel chocolate bars or Starbursts. So that won't work at all.  
How about we buy a stash of them, get some soda, and watch something at my house?  
-Soul **

_Soul,  
I'd love to, as long as you have good movies, and we get cherry Coke.  
You're gonna have to be prepared to face my dad when you come to pick me up, though. Can you drive? You might want to get out of there quickly-he hates any guy who talks to me.  
-Maka_

**Maka,  
Don't doubt my movie collection. I've got a million. We'll find something you'll like.  
Your dad's gonna hate me, though.  
-Soul **

_Soul,  
Haha, okay. I can't wait.  
Why?  
-Maka_

**Maka,  
I have a motorcycle.  
-Soul**

* * *

_A/N: Yay for AUs and stupid fluff. And I mean stupid._

_Background for this stupidity: This is a story where weapons don't exist, and they all go to regular school and stuff. They'd never met before in this, except at a (teen I guess?) club downtown where Soul had been hired to do a set on piano, at the exact same night when Liz, Maka, and Tsubaki went there to celebrate Patty's birthday. Kid and Black*star were there too ,to give Soul support, and in Black*star's case, to pick up girls. Black*star and Tsubaki started talking (*cough*flirting*cough*), and Kid and Patty recognized each other, (Liz and Patty have part-time jobs in a café where Kid gets coffee in the morning) so they were hanging out. Liz and Kid haven't exactly met, because she recognized him but didn't go over to talk to him. Maka was watching Soul out of the corner of her eye all night, and so was Soul (watching her) and there you have it. They never actually spoke, though. Now today, Kid asked Soul and Black*star to meet him in the café, because all the girls meet there too, and he wanted everyone to get fully acquainted, (and although he's not admitting it, have a conversation with Liz) and Patty helped him cook up a scheme to make it happen._

_I don't know where this takes place. My brain didn't figure that out._

_Please R&R!_


	5. crayons

Patty smiled as she colored in her coloring book, singing as she did so. "La lala la laaa~!"

Liz was flipping through the channels, while Kid was staring irritably at the box of crayons beside Patty.

Liz frowned at the TV. "Kid, I thought you said we had on demand movies and stuff."

"I got rid of it." Kid replied absently, still looking at the crayons.

"WHAT?" Liz shrieked.

"They were asking me to pay seven dollars a month for it! You can't expect that of me! Such a horrible number doesn't deserve to be associated with us in any way."

Liz plunked her head in her hands as Patty drew away.

Kid continued to stare at the crayons. "Patty... how many crayons are in that box?" Patty looked up and looked at the number.

"Uuuuuuuuuuuuh 79."

Kid then fell off the couch and started pounding at the ground. "NO! Please make it 80! I'm begging of you! Make it 80, Patty!"

Patty started laughing. "Nyahahahaha!"

Liz sighed and began to rub her temples. "Here we go again..." Kid then began to rant about how 8 and 0 were symmetrical, while 7 and 9 were most defintely not.

Patty kept laughing helplessly. Finally, Kid grabbed the crayon box out of her hand. "Let's see...PATTY THESE ARE SO ASYMMETRICALLY ARRANGED!"

Patty frowned. "Ki-id! I was coloring!" Liz looked up. "Kid, give her back the crayons." Kid ignored her and began to rearrange said crayons, trying to get them symmetrical.

Liz sighed. "Oh god, here we go again..." Patty was boiling with anger, glaring daggers at Kid's head until finally she exploded.

"KID! GIMMIE THE GODDAMN CRAYON! I NEED MY PINK CRAYON TO COLOR THE PIG! PIGS ARENT BLUE!" She waved said blue crayon at him, the one she'd been coloring with when the incident began.

Patty then went to tackle Kid to get the crayons, but Kid jumped over the couch and continued to sort them, mumbling to himself as he went.

"GIMMIE MY CRAYONS!" Patty yelled, and tackled him.

Kid swung a kick at her, a gentle one, and then jumped on top of the couch to get leverage. Then, he pushed off and landed on his feet across the room, still sorting the crayons.

"KIIIIIID!" Patty wailed. "GIVE ME MY CRAYONS!"

Liz felt her temper snap as she yelled, "KID, GIVE HER THE FREAKING CRAYONS!"

"BUT I'M NOT DONE SORTING THEM!" Kid yelled back.

Liz stood up and threw the remote down. "I DON'T CARE! GIVE HER THE CRAYONS BACK RIGHT NOW OR YOU WILL HAVE TO FIGHT WITH ONLY ONE OF US!"

Kid froze. "What?" Kid looked horrified. "What did you mean by that?"

Liz frowned and pinched the bridge of her nose. "I meant that you would have to fight asymmetrically for a year or two."

Kid nearly passed out from shock.

Patty laughed again. "Si-is, you don't mean that! You like it here too much!"

Liz groaned. "I know, Patty, I was trying to get him to give you the crayons...and it's not going to work now."

"Ohhhhhh!" Patty said.

Liz sighed and flopped back on the couch. "Kid, do you WANT to deal with a cranky Patty?"

Kid nodded and continued to arrange the crayons. "If it means having this crayon box symmetrical, then yes, I do, Liz."

Patty stood up, looking very pissed. "Kid, if you don't give me my FRIGGIN crayons, I'm gonna tickle you."

"No! Never! I won't give them up till they are symmetrical! I have only 18 left! Kid yelled back.

Liz slapped herself on the forehead.

Patty glared at him. "Then prepare yourself for PAIN!" she yelled, jumping on him and starting to tickle him furiously.

Kid screeched a manly screech and tried to continue to organize the crayons while laughing.

Liz sighed. _All this over a stupid crayon?_

She stood and walked over, and plucked the crayon box out of Kid's hand.

Kid gasped and clawed the air to get it back. "Give it back, Liz! I only have 8 left!" He tried to get up, but struggled under Patty's weight and tickling.

Liz sighed again. "Patty, stand up would you please?"

Patty looked up and frowned. "But why, sis!"

"Because I have the crayons now." Liz said.

Patty gaped at her and stood quickly. "Can I have them now pretty please?"

Before Liz could hand them to her, Kid stood up and snatched them out of Liz's hand. He ran into his room and locked the door, leaving both sisters running after him. "GIVE THEM BACK, KID!" Liz ordered.

Kid grinned and sat on the floor beside the door.

Liz banged on the door. "Kid! Don't MAKE me come in there and make your room asymmetrical!"

Patty banged on the door. "I'll friggin' KILL YOU KID!"

Kid continued to put them away. "No you wouldn't. Not unless I fail to give the crayons back once I'm done!"

"I DON'T GIVE A-" Patty started but Liz cut her off.

"Kid, come on, if you love crayons so much we'll get you some."

Kid frowned. "I don't love crayons. I love symmetrical things, not these crayons. They were just asymmetrical, so I needed to fix them. Quite honestly, Liz, you should be used to this by now."

Liz laid her head against the door in exasperation. "Just give Patty the crayons. She can color in our room so you don't have to watch."

Kid finished and stood up. He opened the door and smiled. "Here, Patty. You can take your crayons back."

"Finally." Liz groaned. "Do you know how annoyingly impossible you are sometimes, Kid?"

Patty clapped her hands. "Yay! Patty's got her crayons now!"

Kid started to walk back, a large smirk on his face.

Liz frowned, and slammed her foot into the back of his head. "Really! After all that you just HAND the crayons over when you could have done that BEFORE?"

Kid groaned and rubbed his head. "Well, they're SYMMETRICAL now."

Liz threw her hands in the air and yelled, "AUGH!" With that, she stomped off to the living room. "You are an IDIOT."

"No I'm not!" Kid protested, and Patty passed by her coloring book in her hand. "Heheheh Kid, yes you are!" she giggled before vanishing into her and Liz's room with the crayons.

Kid frowned cutely. "Am not! I just like things symmetrical!"

"Exactly!" Liz yelled from the living room.

Kid scowled. "What do you mean by 'exactly'?"

Liz sighed loudly as Kid came to join her on the couch. "I mean that you are insane because you like things symmetrical."

Kid frowned again. "Am not." he complained. "I'm just-"

"Insane." Liz finished.

Kid pouted and crossed his arms.

"Fine then." Liz smiled. "Thank you, Lord Death, for the boy has shut up."

* * *

_A/N: This was co-writeen by me and my best friend Rebecca. She's getting an account soon. _

_This is such crack. I hope it makes you giggle and not leave my page forever._

_Please R&R!_

_~Ninjee_


	6. endearing

"This is my house." he announced, probably unnessesarily, because there _was_ a large skull on the front of the building.

"Does your dad live here too?" Patricia-no, _Patty, _she wanted to be called _Patty_,-asked, her eyebrows crinkling. She giggled then, for no real reason, probably at the thought of his father walking down the stairs or eating cereal in the morning at the table. She and her sister, holding hands, walked up the stairs next to him.

"No, he doesn't." he told her. "Although he does call by mirror sometimes to see how I'm doing."

Elizabeth-_Liz_-scoffed. "Probably just to make sure you don't blow up the damn house with your freak symmetry disorder."

Patty giggled again, quieting quickly. She was acting unusually solemn. Even he could tell she wasn't usually serious, and he'd only known her for three days.

"Well, what about your mom?" Patty asked. "Does _she_ live here?"

His shoulders stiffened and he closed his eyes for a second. "Not anymore." he told her, pushing open the front door and walking inside, hoping she'd drop the subject.

She did, but moved on to something else that made him feel vaugely uncomfortable, though it had never bothered him before.

"So you live here all alone? Gosh, even I had Sissy, and she had me. Aren't you lonely?"

He stopped walking. "If..." He cleared his throat. "If you want a room, you can have any of the ones in this hall except mine."

"The one in the middle!" Patty said importantly, as if she'd solved the mystery of the century.

Liz snorted. "Heaven forbid it was the one on the _right. _How _asymmetrical_."

He had no response to that, and headed to the kitchen. He heard them start to talk as he took out an apple to eat in his room.

"We should get some rest, Patty. Tommorow we can get our bearings and walk around and stuff, but for now you should have dinner and we can sleep."

"Only me?" Patty answered, confused. "Sis, you need food more than me."

"Right. Sorry, I'm just not used to this yet."

"Me niether. It's gonna be real weird to have food all the time." Patty paused. "But I bet it's gonna be real fun, huh, Sis?"

"I hope so, baby girl. I sure hope so."

The softness of Liz's voice suddely made him feel like he shouldn't have been listening. He wasn't used to hearing that tone. Not with her.

Any sentence she directed at _him_ was usually a snide half-insult. It was surprising that she actually _could_ sound that way.

With Patty, it was different. She trusted him already, and he couldn't help but be fond of her. To Patty, people were innocent until proven guilty. He supposed that was how she _could_ trust him. But Liz didn't and without her trusting him, they would have a hard time creating a resonance link.

He went to his room, leaving them to their own devices. He fell asleep without meaning to, staring at the celing and thinking about everything.

When he woke up later, confused and disoriented, he heard crying, then feet running down the hallway, a door clicking open. After a few minutes the sobs stopped, and the feet went back to their room, and he fell back into an uneasy sleep.

It happened again three times.

Four times in total that first night, Patty had nightmares, Liz rushed to comfort her, and he sat in his room cringing at the sound, feeling useless, wanting to help but having no idea how he could.

He was the first to wake up the next moring. Patty's door was open, and when he passed he looked in, quickly.

Liz was in there now-he supposed that that was why the nightmares had finally stopped-and his two new weapons were curled around each other like puppies.

The sight was almost endearing.

It stuck in his head for the tumultuous first two weeks, when they were all being disagreeable, when Patty knocked things over, when they got into a fight on their first day of work, (according to Father, they had to be waitresses in a restaurant for a few weeks for "community service") when Liz snapped at him or when they argued. He kept it there to help him remember that the girls had hearts, they had fears.

Someday, he vowed, they would trust him enough to share their fears, and he would trust them enough to share his. They would be partners. He cared about them, already, both of them, even when they made him want to scream. He wanted now to be their friend, as well as their meister.

So the next time Patty had a nightmare, he went downstairs and made her tea, bringing it up as she started to calm down. He handed it over with a sympathetic look and a quick and tentative brush of his hand over her hair.

She looked so surprised and grateful and happy that he wondered why he hadn't done it before.

* * *

_A/N: Part about the waitressing is actually true, it was in Soul Eater NOT, the other manga. They did get into a fight, and the were totally bad-ass about it, if you'll pardon my french xD Also, Kid showed up to check on them, and Liz threw a glass at his head. I'm convinced that that was their first lovers spat, but I don't think my friend agrees with me xD_

_Disclaimer disclaimer disclaimer._

_Please R&R! _

_~Ninjee_


	7. i'll have it black

Kid glanced at his two weapons as they walked to school. Patty was yawning, and Liz didn't look too awake either. He felt suddenly guilty. It was his fault they'd been up so late, after all. First the mission had run overtime, and then there was that problem with the candles.

Liz grumbled something indistinct and then gestured towards the cafe on their left. "Kid, can I have some money? I could use a coffee."

"Sure." he told her. "I'd like one as well." He hadn't realized it until now, but he was quite tired, too.

Patty yawned again. "Can I get hot chocolate?"

"'Course." Liz told her, crossing to the shop and pushing the door open. "Oh, hey, Tom." she called to the boy behind the counter.

Kid nodded in his direction absently, and scanned the shelves, wondering if the scones here were good.

Patty tugged at his jacket. "Hey Kiddo, can I have cookies?"

"Why cookies?"

"'Cause cookies go good with hot chocolate."

"No cookies, Patty." Liz told her, and she made a pounting face. Kid chuckled.

"Tell you what." he told her. "I'll get a cinnamon roll, and we can split it."

She raised an eyebrow at him, dropping her voice. "But Kiddo, you don't like cinnamon rolls."

He dropped his voice too, as if they were sharing a secret. "Well, if Liz thinks we're sharing, she might let us get it."

Patty's eyes brightened. "Oh! I get it!" She grinned and hugged his arm. "Kiddo, you're the best."

He rolled his eyes. "Honestly, Patty-"

Patty straightened up, and frowned. "Wow, they've been talkin' for a while. Lizzy!" she yelled, making Kid wrench his arm out of her grasp and look at her, annoyed. He hated when she yelled in his ear. "I want my hot chocolate, you can flirt with the dude later!"

Kid glanced over. The last statement had sent a hunk of lead into his stomach.

He had no idea why. Liz flirting with the random boys she met had never bothered him before.

He brushed it off. He was probably still tired.

"Oh, yeah." Liz said. "Patty wants a peppermint hot chocolate, and I'd like one of those caramel lattes, okay?" The boy nodded, shooting her a small smile, and turned. She grabbed his arm. "Wait. Kid, what do you want?"

"Well, Patty and I are going to split a cinnamon roll." he told her, and added, smiling a little, "If that's okay with you."

She smacked his arm, grinning. "It isn't. Patty, you _know_ you can't have sweet stuff in the morning. It's scones or nothing."

Patty grumbled something that sounded like "mean Sissy never lets me have _anything_".

"I do too, Patty, just not cinnamon rolls in the morning."

Kid smiled. "Then three scones, two chocolate chip and one apple cinnamon."

Liz grinned at him. "Thanks for remembering!"

The boy's smile dropped a little, and Kid felt a sudden rush of victory. _I know them._ he thought suddenly, immediately surprised with himself. _I know them, everything about them, and you don't, and there's nothing you can do about it._

Suddenly he disliked this boy, very much, and he still wasn't quite sure why.

"So what kinda coffee you want, kid?" the boy asked, his eyes narrowing a little as he looked at him, and Kid could tell that the 'kid' was an insult and not his name. _You're just a kid, she won't want you._

Wait.

Why did he...

"Black." he told the boy, his head spinning, wondering why that had been his conclusion. Why he had thought that this boy disliked him because...

"You sure about that?" the boy said a hint of a smirk tugging at his cheek. "Black's pretty strong coffee."

"I always have black." Kid told him, disinterestedly. "I assure you I can handle it."

The boy shrugged. "Just checking."

Patty leaned her elbows on the counter and looked up a the ceiling, giggling to herself. Then she gasped. "Hey Lizzy look! There's footprints on the ceiling, hehehe!"

Liz tilted her head back to look, and Kid glanced over at the boy, noting the way his eyes skimmed Liz's face when she wasn't looking.

Too bad he wasn't looking at her chest. Then he'd have an excuse to kill him.

He glanced up as well, curious in spite of himself. There _were_ footprints on the ceiling, paint ones. Apparently, the workers making the building tracked in paint on their boots. The ceiling itself was unfinished, the rough wood of the foundation still showing. He scowled, disliking the roughness of it, how unfinished, imperfect it is. Not disgusting. But close.

He felt Liz gently squeezing his arm, and looked at her.

"Its okay." she told him. "Don't think about it."

He realized that she saw his scowl and didn't want him to have a symmetry fit. That was nice of her, he supposed, but it could just be that she doesn't want him embarassing her.

The boy put Patty's hot chocolate on the counter, and Liz let go of his arm, and suddenly she wasn't so close to him and he rembered how annoying the unfinished ceiling was. He'd forgotten somehow.

No, he'd forgotten because of _her._

What on earth was _wrong_ with him?

"So," the boy at the counter said, "Liz. You got any plans for the weekend?" He's filling up her travel coffee cup as he asks, not nervous at all. He's expecting her to say yes. _Cocky little..._

"What a cocky cock." Patty mumbled in his ear, reading his mind, and he laughed quietly, remembering that line from a movie they saw the other day.

"You're quite right." he told her. She giggled again, and then waltzed out the door, instructing Kid to bring her her scone later.

Liz glanced over at them, curious as to what Patty has said, and the boy tapped her shoulder to bring her attention back to him. "So, this weekend...?"

"Sorry, I can't." Liz told him. "I've already got stuff to do. We have a mission, don't we, Kid?"

He couldn't keep the smirk off his face as he nodded a yes to her._ Victory. _He still doesn't know why he's so happy she didn't accept this boy's offer, except that she's lying. They don't have a mission this weekend. She could go, if she wanted to.

But she doesn't. That's what's pleasing to him about the situation, that she doesn't want to go out with this boy.

"And I already made that date to go shopping with Tsubaki and Maka." she explained lightly, grinning at the boy apologetically. "So I'm booked, Tom. Sorry."

"You're kidding."

"Uh...I'm not."

Kid's starting to chuckle now, mostly at the incredulous look on the boy's face that says her turning him down was never even a possibility. The boy shoots him a glare and he swallows his laughter, but can't contain the smirk as he raises an eyebrow back at him. _Yes?_

He usually doesn't laugh in this sort of situation. He must really be tired.

"Jeez," Liz said. "Hasn't a girl ever said no to you before? You know, maybe I have a boyfriend. Maybe you shouldn't have been hitting on me in the first place. Can I have my scones now?"

"_Our_ scones." Kid corrected. "They're not all for you."

"Don't make me out to be greedy, Kid." she scowled, poking him in the chest, and he grins at her, picking up his coffee from the counter and taking a sip.

He left to the sound of the boy sputtering with annoyance at not getting a date.

"Did Liz slap that cocky french fry?" Patty asked interestedly.

"About the verbal equivalent of slapping him, yes."

"Good~!" she giggled.

There's something about this situation that's extremely funny, and Patty just makes it funnier. He takes another sip of his coffee, the strong blackness of it washing into his system, spiking him with caffeine. He knows it doesn't really work that quickly, but that's the beauty of black coffee, it's so strong that it fools you into thinking it's worked already.

He still can't decide why the verbal slapping of the 'cocky french fry' has made him so very pleased. There are a lot of possiblities. Most of them narrow down to Liz.

He shrugs it off as she comes out with the scones, deciding to not think about it until later.

* * *

It doesn't come to him until the middle of another of Stein's countless dissection labs, when he'd realized that he'd been looking at her for a second too long. And suddenly there was something about looking at her that was so simple and so damn _obvious_ that he was a fool for not noticing it before.

He decides he'll tell her, and quite soon. Maybe she wouldn't turn _him _down for this weekend.

* * *

_A/N: Ninjee can't write romance, even when she tries really hard and loves the couple she's writing for. Don't hate me for this. I beg of you._

_This isn't bad, for something I wrote, actually._

_Disclaimer: There would actually be rediculous amounts of romance in Soul Eater if I owned it, because I'm a sucker for that stuff. And since it can't write romance, you should be really glad I don't own SE._

_PLEASE R&R, especially to help me with the romance aspect. It would be much apreciated._

_~Ninjee_


	8. running with scissors

_For so long I've been playing with fire and running with scissors_

_I'm not sure I know how to stop_

* * *

One of the rules when they first moved in was _no cigarettes._

Another was _no drugs._

He'd insisted that they give it all up completely, because that was the only way they'd ever stop wanting it.

She'd never let Patty touch the stuff she took.

She'd only taken them in the first place because they'd made her forget about being hungry.

She didn't think there'd be a problem.

But there was.

* * *

_I'm not sure I know how to stop_

_and not sure I want to_

* * *

Suddenly she was struggling with addictions that she hadn't known she had.

By the end of the week she'd have given up all her new stuff for a smoke.

She broke down a few days later and bought a pack down the street, smiling and cheerfully saying her dad wanted some cigs, you know how it is! It helped the illusion seeing that now she was clean and her clothes were new.

She headed idly to a playground a few blocks from the house, sat on the swing and breathed it in.

It felt good on her lungs. She smiled and blew smoke pictures into the sky as she smoked the cigarette, ashes falling off the end.

* * *

_not sure I want to_

_not sure I can_

_not sure I'm meant for this_

* * *

He found her, of couse. Even only 14 years old as he was, he was accomplished at reading souls. He could find her from a mile away.

Patty was with him, and she giggled and raced to the swing next to her sister, pumping her legs.

She breathed smoke into the sky, watched it vanish, and wished she could get away that easily.

He sat down on the swing on her other side and watched her for a moment.

His question didn't surprise her.

"How long have you been doing this?"

* * *

_oh, dear god, I've been doing this for years_

_and one week and a half without them and I'm a mess_

_but then_

_now I realize they didn't only take away my hunger_

* * *

"Only today." she told him. "I just couldn't take it anymore."

He looked a bit surprised.

"No drugs, either." she added. "I'm clean and sober. I just wanted a cigarette."

"Why?"

"I don't know. It feels good. Calming."

He considered that. "I'm disappointed you broke your promise." he said finally. "And I'll have to take those." He gestured to the pack in her hand.

"Why?"

"Why what?"

"Why can't I smoke?"

"It stinks." he told her. "And more importantly, they're a drug too. And they can kill you-lung cancer, and that sort of thing."

"Why'd you make me go cold turkey the moment I got here, though? Couldn't I have just eased out of it slowly?"

He frowned. "I didn't want you getting sucked in any more than you had. Drugs are like another kind of madness."

* * *

_they took away my fear_

* * *

**_A/N: _**_Maybe a little depressing or weird, but that's how I roll._

_Anyway, insparation struck for this._

_Disclaimer disclaimer disclaimer blah blah blah_

_Please R&R!_

_~Ninjee_


	9. miserable at best

He's singing as he does the dishes.

Liz used to do that. She used to pop in a slow jazz CD, or alternative rock, or something soft and melodic, (the CDs were always borrowed from Soul) and play them over and over until she and everyone else in the house knew every word. And then she'd play them once more for good measure, belting out the songs as she lay in her room or on the couch, every word perfect. Then she'd move on to a new CD, sick of the old one.

He'd forgotten somehow that they would leave in the end, and now that he doesn't have to complain about the noise or the mess he just blasts their CDs and dumps things on the floor to see if it'll help with missing them.

_When you make someone into a Death Scythe,_ he thinks, _you make yourself forget they'll be leaving you. Instead you concentrate on the new power you can feel in the resonance and the two perfect shots that knock out the witches you're hunting for good. You watch with love and pride as they swallow the pulsing purple souls, holding hands, and grow more powerful than you'd ever imagined. And you make yourself forget that they are technically not your weapons, but Father's, as they crush you in a hug._

_You forget that now you'll work alone, because Death Scythes are stationed in cities and your father has sent them to Brooklyn. And when the day comes that they are told that they will leave and it comes back to you, it's with a sickening thud and the three of you looking at each other with horror because you don't want to be apart. It bursts your ecstasy at successfully defeating two witches at once and leaves you bitter and memorizing every inch of their faces until you can picture them in you mind at any moment. It leaves you wickedly jealous of Maka and Soul, who are such a powerful team together that Maka was sent with him to Chicago, and wishing you had the freedom of Black*Star, who who simply got onto a plane after about a week and joined Tsubaki in Japan, because he missed her and she missed him more._

The other meisters have excuses and he does not. His girls can take care of themselves, can wield each other, can fight together. He is a Reaper and can fight on his own. They don't need each other, not in the way the others do. Not like Black*Star who can't really resonate with anyone but Tsubaki. Not like Maka and Soul who won't let anyone else near their partners. He can't be that selfish anymore, much as he'd like to. He and Liz and Patty don't need each other.

But they do.

The other meisters have excuses and his only excuse is that he loves these girls, his family, his partners. He loves them and that makes him happy that they can wield each other, because that means he is not being replaced as their meister. He loves Patty, his little sister, who can always make him laugh nowadays, even when she's trying to cheer him up, because the way she does it is so madly funny. He loves Liz, he doesn't know how much, who always manages to cheer him up for real, and looks at him like a normal person and not a Grim Reaper. He loves them and he's jealous of them, because even they have each other and all he has is an empty, cold house that practically reeks of them.

They are far away in Brooklyn but they write every day, telling him about finding some street kids one day and paying for them to be in a good orphanage, one that won't separate families. Telling him about what things are different from when they were there and what is the same. Every day he gets home to a new email, and he always writes back, telling them about the training his father is giving him and how the Academy is doing. For the first few weeks they try to seem okay, and he doesn't tell them how empty the house seems or how much he missed them.

Then Patty adds a quick PS in their next letter. **We really miss you. **she says, ** both of us. It's real hard bein' alone when you're used to having people around, right Kiddo? But I think we'd miss you if you were only down the street. All this time I thought Brooklyn was home, but now it feels wrong here. **

**You left a CD in the player, Patty. ** he responds. **I played it today. I think it was Owl City-the one I hated. But I left it playing...now I know every word. Isn't that sad? **He can't seem to describe the emptiness, so all he says is **You were right about it feeling wrong. It feels wrong here, too. Like it's not our house anymore.**

It's Liz writing this time, Patty adding her say in italics so he knows it's her. **You weirdo, you can say you miss us, you know :) We miss you too, only we didn't say it before. _Cuz Liz was trippin' about YOU not sayin' it, she thought you didn't miss us and she was all bummed. _Shut up, Patty. Anyway, it doesn't feel much like home here either. Too asymmetrical :) It doesn't help that we miss you like hell and it hits us again every two seconds. There Patty, I said it. Happy? _What she means is we're hopeless morons without ya and we wanna come home real soon. Sooner than soon. _Yeah, this can't go on forever. We're only here for a year, I think, and if it's longer we'll negotiate. Patty and I wanna come home for real.**

When they do get home, finally, he's discovered he _can_ live without them, but it's not a preferable existence. He likes it much better when they're there with him.

When they get off the plane it's a mess of a hug with both of their arms around him at once.

It's Liz covering Patty's eyes jokingly and kissing him full on the mouth in the middle of the airport, which normally would have embarrassed him but he only has time to be shocked. And when she confesses that she's loved him since she left, which was a sucky time to realize it, he kisses her again and doesn't care about the eyes on them.

It's how Patty begs for a piggyback ride from Liz on the way home and Liz complains that she'll break her back, just like always.

It's having them back, for good this time, because he'll be Lord Death soon enough and they'll be his weapons then, anyway, so they might as well stay.

That's how he explains it to his father, but he doesn't mention Patty yelling over Liz's music or the three of them squished on the smallest couch to watch a movie because it has the best view of the TV. He doesn't explain how they are now his little sister and the girl he loves, he doesn't tell his father about needing them like two arms or legs, about missing them when they're gone and that emptiness, how without them he is miserable and without him they are too.

They are his partners and without each other they are nothing. Without them he is OCD to the point of madness, unable to control what happens or what sets him off, and there is no voice breaking through the white noise, telling him it's okay. Without him they still feel like street thieves, the shame of what they've done undiluted by anything, and there is no Kid to bring Patty tea after a nightmare (which has become an automatic reaction) and no Kid tightening his had on Liz in gun form when she's afraid on a mission (because she still hasn't mastered courage.) There is no 19-year old boy running through the house and complaining of the mess, and there are no 20 and 18-year-olds to mess it up in the first place.

They are not themselves without each other, and maybe his father realizes that, because the next day there is a new Death Scythe assigned to Brooklyn, and Liz and Patty are unpacking for good.

* * *

_A/N: I don't know where this came from, but I'm rather proud of it. _

_Disclaimer, blah blah blah._

_Sort-of-inspired by the Mayday Parade song Miserable at Best, but just the idea of it, not the plot._

_Please R&R!_

_~Ninjee_


	10. girl talk

"So." Liz said, looking oddly happy. "Guess what?"

"What?" Maka asked warily.

"We're going shopping!" the elder Thompson squealed, grabbing her arm and tugging her along the street after her. Patty giggled, grabbing her other arm and stopping her from getting away. Soul, who had been sitting on the bench next to her, half asleep with a pair of headphones, looked up.

"Heeeelp." Maka wailed.

Soul smirked. Liz grinned, and called back to him, "We'll have her back by midnight, and she won't be drunk or high."

"And that's the best you're gonna get, hahaha!" Patty squealed. "She might pick up a few dudes by the time we're done with her!"

"Nooooo!" Maka wailed. "Don't do anything to me."

"Relax, cupcake, it was only a joooke!" Patty giggled.

"If you're going to use that line every single moment, no more Star Trek for you, even if the guy is sexy." Liz told her.

"Awwww, but Sis..."

"No buts, Patty, I'm gettin' sick of you calling me cupcake."

"Okay, fine, whatever you want, Sis." Patty sulked.

"Tsubaki!" Liz yelled, craning her neck and looking for the black-haired girl.

"Over here." Tsubaki calls, waving.

"C'mon, ladies!" Liz says cheerfully, and she and Patty rush Maka over to Tsubaki, Maka wearing a very annoyed expression.

"You look down." Tsubaki observed, falling into step besides Liz and linking arms with her.

"I don't wanna go shopping." Maka sulked.

"You're being childish." Liz scolded. "C'mon, Maka, it'll be fun, aye? You need some new stuff anyway, you have, like, one dress. Ugh. If you wear the same thing at this year's anniversary party that you did at last year's, people are gonna remember."

"They are _not,_ Liz, we were _attacked._ I doubt anyone will remember what I wore, for Death's sake."

"Still," Liz said cheerfully, "better safe than sorry!"

Tsubaki sighed. "I hate to spoil your day of reading, Maka, but you do need a new dress, you got taller."

"Really?"

"Yup." Liz said cheerfully. "And a little less flat-chested, too!"

"Shut _UP._" Maka grumbled. "Okay, fine. I'll shop with you."

"Yayyyyyy!" Liz squeals, beaming.

Later, they're browsing dresses, and Liz is scanning a shelf of dresses with skirts that flare out when you turn, trying to find a pink one for Patty. "We'll do it in order, easiest to shop for to hardest." she explains. "Patty likes anything, so her first." She finds the dress, scans the shelves, and grabs a few more, and in light, pretty colors like yellow or blue.

"Go try those on." she orders. "Tell me which ones you like best, aye?"

Liz is a shopping tycoon. She can spot the good dresses a mile away, Maka admits grudgingly, and she seems to know what colors and styles work the best on each girl. She shops for herself while she's waiting for Patty to change, Tsubaki browsing with her and Maka sitting on the bench.

Then her eyes focus on something across the room and she stands. "Liz, look at this." she calls, heading over to it.

Liz is there almost immediately, her jaw dropping for a split second before she grins and gives Maka a huge hug. "This is perfect! I love it, and it will so make an impression. Tsubaki, check this out!"

The older girl dashes over, studies the dress, (a slim black number that was paired with a gray leather jacket) and grins. "This is great. It'll look really good on you."

Patty's voice rings out from across the room. "Sissy, come look at this one, kay?"

Liz picks up the dress and jacket and skips over, smiling. Patty's wearing a sunshine yellow dress with a fitted top and a loose skirt, and the straps have little ruffles on them.

"She looks adorable!" Tsubaki squeals. Patty does a little twirl and grins.

"I like yours too, Sissy." she announces. "Go try it on, we'll wait!"

Liz needs no more encouragement, and disappears into the changing room. A few minutes later, she reappears, beaming. The dress is fitted and hugs her curves, and the jacket sets it all off perfectly. The sisters beam at each other in the mirror, and they both look so beautiful.

Maka thinks to herself that she could never look half as beautiful.

"My turn." Tsubaki giggle. "Stop ogling yourselves."

"We can leave that to Kiddo, heehee." Patty giggles, elbowing her sister in the side.

"Oh my gosh, that was the whole reason you wanted a new dress?" Tsubaki sighs. "That's adorable, Liz."

Liz laughs, slinging an arm around her friend's waist. "Well, you're pretty eager to get a new dress yourself. Could it be Blackstar?"

Tsubaki blushes and pointedly walks off to browse the dresses some more.

"Don't dish it out if you can't take it, dearest." Liz singsongs, grinning, and finally Tsubaki laughs, because the alternative is being mad, and she's not good at being mad at people.

"So what color do you want?" Maka questions her.

"Not sure." Tsubaki says thoughtfully. "Just something pretty, I guess."

They each come back with a dress, and she tries all four of them on. The winner is a red halter-neck with a slit up to her knee that she looks drop-dead gorgeous in. They all gasp when she comes out, and Liz insists that it's the one, looking proud because it was the one she picked out.

"You look like Snow White." Patty agrees. "Or what I always thought she should look like, anyway."

Maka smiles at Tsubaki as she slips back in the little room to change.

"Now we find a dress for Maka." Liz says happily. "Yours'll be the best."

She scans the shelves, Maka hanging back because all the dresses here are so fancy and she doesn't think any of them could look right on her. On Liz and Tsubaki they look natural, but she's not sure about herself.

Liz is flipping past dresses and muttering to herself, and finally she hands her one. "Try this on, and I'll look for more."

Tsubaki agrees to be the judge of what looks good, and sits on the bench outside the changing rooms.

The dress Liz handed her is lavender, and tight against her skin. She steps out self-consciously, and Tsubaki frowns and hands her another hanger. "That one doesn't look right on you."

She steps back in and glances at the next one, a dark blue dress that's a bit looser than the last one, but still tight. This one doesn't feel as awkward, but Tsubaki frowns again, and sends her back. She tries on at least seven dresses before Tsubaki is smiling when she walks out.

The one that made her smile-and made Maka smile, too-is olive-green and shimmery, the sleeves loose and the dress itself tight. You'd think it would be odd, but it seems put together. She spins for her friends, and Patty grins. "You look real pretty!"

She shrugs and starts to head for the dressing room. "Wait." Liz says, grabbing her wrist. "Aren't you gonna look in the mirror or anything?"

She looks away. "I'm not gonna be as beautiful as you guys." she mutters, and Liz's eyes go hard. With a quick snap of her wrist, Liz pulls the elastics from her pigtails and runs her fingers through her hair, getting it to lie straight down to her shoulders.

"Now look at yourself." she orders, spinning her around to face the mirror.

It's something about the dress, and her hair down, or maybe there's a picture of a totally different girl there. Liz's hands tighten on her shoulders, and she sighs. "Maka, look at you. You're beautiful."

And she is. Suddenly, she is.

"You're gonna knock Soul dead." Liz promises, and the moment's gone as Maka wrenches herself away.

"Who said anything about him?" she yelps, dashing into the changing room as Liz starts to laugh behind her.

"The way you stare at him what you know he's not looking gave it away, sweetie!"

* * *

_A/N: I'm not sure how I did with this, but I hope you like it. _

_Soul Eater doesn't belong to me. Sadly, neither does Star Trek (the newer one, by J. J. Abrams) in which Kirk is extremely cute._

_Until next time! Please R&R!_

_~Ninjee_


	11. carnival

It was rare that they all had time to sightsee, with all the work they had to do. But there was a carnival at the beach, a city away from where the Egg they'd had to collect was, and he'd be damned if they didn't go have some fun for once.

She complained, at first. "We have to get back as soon as possible, this is work, Soul, we don't have time for this stuff!"

"Roller coasters, Maka." he'd reminded her. "Ferris wheels, weird games in booths, winning useless prizes, cotton candy..."

She'd wavered at the last one, glancing from the window that they were supposed to call Lord Death with to his pointedly outstretched hand.

"C'mon, have you ever been to a real carnival before?" he'd asked, knowing she hadn't.

"Have _you?" _she countered, hands on her hips.

"My brother and granny used to take me," he admitted, shrugging, "when my parents were out of town. We all loved it."

"Really?" she asked. "Oh. Well, I guess, if you think it'd be that fun..."

"You make it sound like I wanna go to a museum." he groaned, taking her hand and dragging her along the street. "It's gonna be awesome, trust me."

"Wait, we have to call first!" she protested, sliding her hand out of his grasp and quickly dialing the Death Room.

"Hello there, Maka!" Lord Death announced cheerfully.

Patty popped out from behind him, and giggled. "You get the Egg, cupcake?"

"Stop calling me that." Maka groaned.

"Heehee, relax, cupcake."

He rolled his eyes. "Yeah, we got him. 'S cool if we stay here for tonight, right? There's a carnival going on down by the beach we wanna check out."

"Alrighty, that's fine with me." Lord Death replied cheerfully. "You two are doing great on re-collecting those souls you lost. You deserve a break."

He elbowed her, giving her a _See? I told you so_ look.

"So, are you guys going on, like, a date?" Patty asked interestedly. "Cuz that's what Kiddo and Sissy are doing. Is it something in the water or were you all just oblivious before?"

They barely have time to be embarrassed before Spirit is summoned by the word "date" and charges into the room. "MAKAA! YOU STAY AWAY FROM THAT BOY! HE'S A CREEP! A LEECH!"

Behind Spirit, furiously shaking his fist at Soul, Patty and Lord Death are watching like it's a mildly amusing TV show. "So, my son and your sister are on a date?" Lord Death asks, sounding like he's considering getting popcorn and watching the drama unfold.

Patty shrugs. "I think so, cuz Liz didn't tell me nothin' but she looked all nervous, and I think they were holdin' hands but I couldn't really tell cuz I was watchin' TV. But they'd be the best if they got together so I hope it's true, heehee!" She claps her hands and then glances at Spirit with slight distaste. "And lookit you, mister, yellin' at her! They never even said they were on a date, and even if they was, Maka's a big girl. She's like sixteen now."

"Maka, you're Papa's little girl, right?" Spirit sobs. "Don't go on any dates, I can't handle seeing you grow up like that!"

Maka scowled. "Papa, since when have I centered my life around what you can handle?" She snorted, as if to say _Oh, please,_ and Spirit reeled back as though she had slapped him. Maka ignored him, and ran her fingers across the glass, cutting the call.

He couldn't help grinning at her as they walked toward the carnival. "So, is this a date?" he teased.

She rolled her eyes at him. "Oh, please!"

He laughed.

Later, they are standing in front of the dart toss, and he looks at her, smirking. "So? Fun so far?"

She nods, laughing a little.

"And you thought I didn't know how to have a good time." he tells her triumphantly. They'd bought a pair of the florescent bracelets that let you go on every single ride, taking advantage of the fact and testing everything, even the crappy ones. Then there's the carnival's food-there's a stand that sells possibly the best doughnuts ever made, and they get a dozen and eat six each, because they're just so damn good. Then, of course, they can't go on any rides for a while, so they get some cotton candy for her and a funnel cake for him and go to try the games.

"Six darts for two dollars, miss!" The man behind the booth says cheerfully, a southern twang twitching in his voice. "Pop five balloons and you win a jumbo prize, four and you win something smaller."

She grins and hands him the money, laughing. She's absolutely terrible, and only manages to get three, but her laughter makes up for it. The man winks at her. "Better luck next time, doll."

"Throwing darts isn't really my thing." she tells him cheerfully as they walk off, taking his hand and swinging it between them.

"Then we could try those." he tells her, gesturing towards a booth holding a different game, one where you squirt a stream of water into the mouth of a grinning clown.

"I bet I'll win." she challenges.

"You're on. Loser buys the doughnuts." he bargains, and she shakes his hand, laughing.

"Done."

They play, and when he loses, he squirts her with the water, straight to the face. Her expression is ridiculous, and she looks like she can't decide whether to Maka Chop him or laugh with him. She decides on the latter, gasping out as they walk away that he's still buying the doughnuts tomorrow when they get breakfast. He agrees, and grabs her hand to drag her to the roller coaster.

Now that it's getting dark, they go on the wild rides, the one that spin you and flip you and move so fast that the whole world becomes a giant wheel of color from the lights glowing on the rides. Neither of them can stop laughing, and every time they try something happens that sets them off again, whether it be Soul getting powdered sugar on his face from a funnel cake or Maka getting dizzy after a wild ride that flips you upside down and right side up so fast you can't tell what way is up when you get off that she has to ride the merry-go-round to make her head stop spinning.

They keep playing games and going on rides and eating until they're positively punch drunk, and he grabs her hands and dances with her to the old classics they're playing over the speakers.

_All that glitters is gold, only shooting stars break the mold..._

And then they're about to leave, it's midnight and they're tired, when a man running the Ferris Wheel stops them. "Trust me, you wanna go on here before you leave. The fireworks are about to start, and I'll make sure you're near the top, eh?"

Maka grins excitedly. "I love fireworks! Can I put my bag over here?"

"Sure thing, kiddo." he says, grinning at her. As soon as she's out of earshot, he turns to Soul and says, "Kiss her, son."

'W-what?" He feels himself blushing and curses it. Not cool at all.

"You heard me." the man tells him calmly. "Kiss her, boy. She's been looking at you all night."

"How do you know?" he asks suspiciously.

The man laughs, a dry old laugh. "Oh, I notice things, I do. I got this job to watch the people, and you're hard to miss with that hair."

Maka's back by now, and they sit on the wheel together, the few people still at the rides trickling down to the beach to watch the fireworks.

She slides in next to him and grins, and she's so excited that he can't help but tease her about it as the Wheel starts. "Look at you, you're like a little kid on Christmas."

She doesn't even get mad. "I love Ferris Wheels." she explains. "My mama took me on one, once. They're so magical."

He snickers, and she sticks her tounge out at him. They're about at the top now, and the wheel stops turning.

There's a few seconds of anticipation, and then the fireworks start.

She gasps and grabs his hand, and as they watch, the man below creeps back into his mind.

_She's been looking at you all night._

"Hey, Maka."

She turns to him, and there's a glow all over her face.

_Kiss her, son._

He does.

When the wheel comes back down, her head's on his shoulder, and the man running the ride gives him an _I told you so_ look.

He kisses her again halfway home, and this one's longer, better. And suddenly he's seriously thankful that carnivals and Ferris Wheels and fireworks exist.

* * *

_A/N: SOMA OMG. MY SECOND FAVORITE._

_I figured you guys deserve more than Liz and Kid and Patty spam all the time. So, tada! A carnival. But I couldn't resist sneaking Patty in at the beginning, heehee. I think she and Lord Death would have the awesomest Father/Daughter relationship ever. I'm not even kidding._

_And the donut part was from my vacation, when we visited a place called Britt's Donut Shop in Carolina Beach, North Carolina. The donuts are life changing. If you're ever in NC, go there and discover the meaning of everything._

_I don't own Soul Eater, obviously._

_Please R&R!_

_~Ninjee_


	12. headache

The headaches have started again.

That's the absolute first thing he realizes when he wakes up. They're back and they hurt worse than ever.

He glances at his clock, sitting up. It's about 7:30. Usually, he sleeps later than this, at least on weekends. Until 8. Liz makes fun of him for that. His OCD even sinks into his sleep...

But there's still that merciless pounding in his head. Sleep won't help. He knows from experience.

So he pulls himself into an upright position and walks down the hallway, tugging a T-shirt over his head as he goes, because on days like this it doesn't seem worth it to get dressed until the headache goes away.

He stumbles downstairs in his pyjamas to find Patty wandering around in the kitchen, opening cuboards and the fridge at random successions, her shoulder keeping the phone at her ear.

"Yeah, Sis, I said we had eggs. Get some Eggos...I know you don't like that stuff. I do. And Kid and I both like tea, get somma that...No, you can't get what you wan't 'cause you're there, you're shopping for all of us..."

She scowls at the phone, and then sees him. "Heya, Kiddo!"

He can't help but wish that Patty was doing the shopping and Liz was home. Liz would be much quieter. He gives Patty a tired wave and sits at the table, putting his head in his hands and she continues to instruct her sister on what to buy. This is how shopping for food is done in their house, they're all hopeless at making lists, and Patty usually can't remember what they have and what they don't, and she's primarily the one that does the shopping, because she's the one who cooks.

Everyone thinks that a person like Patty should be kept far away from the kitchen at all times, but Kid's disorder makes him hopeless at cooking, and Liz holds no talent for it. Patty does. She can cook anything. They discovered her talents last year, and they were happy about it, because it meant they would stop having so much takeout.

Kid dislikes takeout. It comes boxed up and the food is sloppily made.

He's glad Patty can cook, he thinks vaugely.

His head slips through his fingers and falls with a clunk on the table, which makes it hurt more.

"Kiddo, what's goin' on, are you okay? What happened?" Patty sounds worried.

"My head hurts." he manages. "Quite a lot."

Patty taps her chin, and goes to the fridge, and pours him some juice, mixing seltzer water in. "You should have drinks when you're sick." she tells him. "Here."

He takes a cautious sip. The drink's ice cold, and it cuts through the white noise a little.

"We don't have headache meds for you, we ran out last week." Patty says. "But Sis can buy more, kay, Kiddo? I'll make you breakfast. Special breakfast cuz you're sick!"

She goes back to the phone. "Sissy, I'mma need some more stuff for pancakes, okay? Buttermilk, and cream cheese, and powdered sugar..."

He groans. "Patty, this doesn't sound like a meal for a sick person. Or for me." He's never been a big fan of sweets. It's why he likes black coffee so much.

"Shut up." Patty says matter-of-factly. "You'll like it. Trust me, Mr. Sick Reaper Guy."

He sighs and puts his head back on the table.

She's acting very grown up this morning. Or at least not as crazy.

Because his head hurts.

He appreciates that.

He feels her push the hair off his forehead and opens one eye.

"It's cuz you were always so nice, and you brought me tea and stuff when I had nightmares and stuff, you know, Kiddo, when I first was here and I was scared of the bad guys who hurt Sissy and me back then, and you were nice, and so now I'm nice too. Plus you're my meister, and you're my family, like my stupid big brother or something. Yeah. So I help you when you have headaches and you help me when I have nightmares 'cause that's what family's for, right, Kiddo?"

"Thanks." he tells her, closing his eye again.

It's not like the headache had gone away, it's definitely still there, but he manges to fall asleep somehow and wakes up to Patty shaking him and singing out, "Wakey wakey Kiddo, Sissy's got your meds!"

He swallows the pills gratefully and watches Patty cook while he waits for them to take effect, and Liz stands leaning agains the wall, alternating between looking at him and at Patty, as though she can't decide if she should worry about either of them.

When Patty finishes the cinnamon roll pancakes later on, glaze drizzled across the top and cinnamon filling spread like butter between the pancakes, they even seem appetizing, sweet as they are, and he eats them.

Patty grins. "Told ya you'd like 'em. But you didn't listen to me, nope, nobody listens to Patty."

He laughs a little, his headache already fading, and grins at her.

* * *

_A/N:__ Have some derp, guys. I wrote this in the middle of the night when I had an idea._

_And have some Kid and Patty family tiemz._

_Hope you like. I don't own, obviously._

_Please R&R! I love reviews! And I'll take suggestions for what to write next, even though I can't garentee I'll use them. :)_

_~Ninjee_


	13. dreamland

Liz doesn't have nightmares.

At least, not usually. That's Patty, who isn't really grown up yet because she never had that chance, and while Liz grew up too fast Patty's stuck, stuck, stuck, like a broken record that keeps skipping over the same place, the same time, the same phase.

Patty has nightmares. She dreams of the people. She was always the gun, and she didn't have to look into their eyes as the life left them, that was Liz's job. (She was always protecting Patty, every hour of every day she lived, because while Patty had to do horrible things, there was always something worse. Liz had to do that because that was the sort of thing you did when you loved somebody, you kept them safe from what was worse.)

And Patty's terrified childish brain twists the human screams and the vague blurry faces into something terrible and always wakes up screaming. Liz simply doesn't have the chance to have nightmares, because as always, it's Patty first, just they way it used to be.

Stealing for Patty. Killing for Patty. Lying and cheating and giving up her food for Patty, so that when Kid finally rescued them, while Patty herself was too skinny to be healthy, Liz was a skeleton, and Patty screamed herself when she saw Liz's indented ribs and what her sister had given up all this time for her. Whatever she's done, all of it wrong, that was how she comforted herself-_If I don't do this, Patty's gonna die._ Always, that was what made it okay, that it was for Patty's sake.

Kid changes this a little. At first it's vague things, like the fact that they're rich now means they can both eat all they want, even though they don't get to actually live at his house for a while-they're both under Nygus's care for some time, and even when Patty's all better she refuses to leave, not without her sister, and Liz holds Patty's hand, and they're lost in a sea of white sheets and soft voices, and interested faces peering in to catch a glimpse of these walking skeleton street kids.

But when they get there, finally, he orders them pizza, something they've had before but not warm and not so gooey and never with ham and pineapple, which is what Patty wants, even though Liz finds herself sharing a raised-eyebrow look with Kid, even if she doesn't fully trust him yet, because they both think it sounds nasty. But of course it turns out really good, even though Kid doesn't like pizza as a principle because it's so messy. And the pizza is warm and delicious in her stomach and she gives herself a stomachache after eating too many pieces.

Patty's nightmares start that night, and for about four months she can never get a good night's sleep because Patty always wakes her up. And she doesn't care, not really, because everything going on is almost too much, and she even wonders when she's going to wake up from this insane crazy dream. But she doesn't, and eventually they both settle in, and once the daze of suddenly having everything is lifted, Patty's sleeping better.

They're still lost, in a crazy, symmetrical, unfamiliar world, a world where the Grim Reaper is a friendly, joking man wearing a cloak that looks like soot and a mask, who never shows his face but is incredibly trustworthy all the same, a world where it's the end of the world when the paintings are crooked and where Kid yells at the pizza guys over the phone when they cut the pizza asymmetrically a world where everything is perfect all of a sudden and all they can hope for is that it won't be taken away.

Patty still has nightmares sometimes, but they're not as plentiful as they used to be, and Liz only has to wake up about twice a month to soothe her back into sleep.

Liz doesn't have nightmares. At least, not that she lets on. If she told, Patty would be worried and Kid would be too, and she keeps her dreams of ghosts and dying eyes and screams to herself. No one needs to know, when she wakes in a cold sweat, and rolls over to go back to sleep. It's just a dream and it's fine.

Finally, this new world is home, after two years, after the Kishin is defeated and Maka and Soul are inevitably the most popular weapon partners in the whole school, and Kid goes into and comes out of a state of depression because his hair was finally, finally, _finally, _symmetrical and he wasn't even conscious to see it. After she's sixteen and Patty's fourteen and Kid's fifteen and they're finally not lost anymore.

And Liz has nightmares, and they're worse than before.

_She sees her mother, swimming in and out of her vision, saying something that she can't hear, and she looks at those brown eyes and thick bright blonde hair that's the same exact color as Patty's and she screams, and lashes out with her hand, and there's a gun in it, but not Patty, and she shoots her mother in the forehead because she wasn't there, wasn't there, and she's screaming this in her dream, but her voice is too deep and she doesn't feel like herself and she's looking into her mother's eyes and they're not, they're blue, blue, blue, they're her eyes, they're Patty's eyes, and that would be bad enough, but she's a man now, the man that was fighting with his gang that day when he was walking back from getting milk, she's that man who got angry and shot the first person he saw as he stormed away, and her victim's hair is short and brown with stubble on his chin and the man she's killed is her father._

_Those blue eyes._

That's when she wakes up, sweating and shivering and sobbing, and she buries her face in her pillow and wishes she hadn't wanted milk that day, wishes she'd left her cereal dry.

"It's my fault, Daddy, I'm so sorry, I love you, and it was my fault." she sobs into her pillow.

One night a week later, she stifles a scream as she wakes up and she hears feet stop in the hallway and she knows that someone knows now.

Kid opens the door.

"It wasn't your fault, you know." he says conversationally, and he looks so normal in his pajamas holding a glass of water, that she wonders if shes still dreaming, if she's trying to make herself feel better.

She's having worse dreams now, this has been one of them, the worse ones are the ones when her mind is torturing her with just what would happen if she hadn't wanted milk that day.

It's beautiful. And she want's these dreams to be true and when she wakes up she feels herself longing for them, screaming with the pain that they're _not _real, and she feels like if she's not careful she could get lost in this perfect dreamland and never wake up.

Kid sits on the end of her bed. "You wanna talk about it?" he asks, a little hesitantly, as though he's not sure if he's doing this right.

She wipes at her eyes furiously. "How'd you know...?"

"I heard you. Last week." he admits. "I wanted to go in, but...I didn't know what I could do."

"Tea would've helped." she tells him, the corner of her mouth quirking a little, and he stands.

"Come on." he says, taking her hand and squeezing it once as they walk down the stairs together.

Eventually she tells him over tea, about the dreams, the first and the second, and he can hear the longing in her voice when she tells him about it being Christmas, or something,

_some sort of occasion and Patty picking up a present and being about to open it when the doorbell rang, and she rushed to get it, and a woman, older now than she was, with graying hair but the same brown eyes, but they weren't clouded by drugs and pain and all the men parading in and out of her bedroom, they were so happy, and she calls their names, even Kid, and Patty gives her a huge hug and starts chattering excitedly about how she make cookies and she wants her to see them. Then a man comes in, with a stubbly salt-and-pepper beard and brown and gray hair and bright blue eyes and kisses Patty's cheek and calls her peanut, and then looks at Liz and says "By God, babydoll," in his Brooklyn accent, "you're getting to be as gorgeous as your mom!" and she hugs him and says hello, and her mom talks about her bakery and how well it's doing as she takes off her coat._

"And everything was perfect." she finishes. "She l-loved cooking, just like Patty, I remember, and she wanted a bakerey so badly..."

"Why do you blame yourself? For your father dying?"

"He was on his way back from the store when he got shot." she tells him, choking up a little again. "He was getting milk. For my cereal."

"Liz." Kid says, and he takes her hand again, holds it hard. "It wasn't your fault."

"I wish I hadn't wanted it." she says, starting to cry again. "I-I wish I'd w-waited."

He waits while she cries, and keeps his hold on her hand, and it feels like a lifeline so she won't fly off into that dreamworld again.

* * *

_A/N: So of course the first thing I write after a long long looong time is something really sad. _

_Here's some sad Liz and comforting Kid. Microwave at low for 8 minutes to get the full effect. Also, ignore my crappy attempt at humor._

_Heh._

_Also, ten billion thank yous to Compactor07 who reviewed and was so sweet about my stories, you literally made me squeal. ^^ Thanks a bunch! Hugs to you! _

_I may or may not be starting a new story soon, called Kidnapped! which features Kid as a prince and Liz and Patty as pirates, their crew, and a strange islande with an even stranger world. Sound interesting? Tell me what you think, if you have the time ^^_

_I don't own anything except the crappy plotlines spewing from my brain._

_Goodnight, everybody._

_Please R&R. _

_Much love, Ninjee~_


	14. i know i never had much nice to say but

_The following story contains swearing. If you don't like, please don't read. Also, Soul and Maka are both about sixteen here, so that's why Soul's cursing and shiz. Again, if you don't like, don't read. It's that simple._

* * *

_So, hey, I heard the news that you're dead,  
__and I know I never had much nice to say but  
__I think they never liked you anyway_

_~Dead! by MCR_

Every morning, Liz brings the paper to school.

She'd give the comics to Patty and the music & entertainment to Soul, and keep the rest for herself, and that was how Soul had been expecting it to go that morning. But when he walked over to the steps, which was where they clustered every morning to talk and hang out before classes started, they were all leaning in and staring at the newspaper-even Ragnarok, pushing himself up on Crona's shoulders, and Blackstar, and both of them weren't much for reading anyway.

"What's goin' on?" he called, and they all looked up at him uneasially.

"Well, uh." Liz said, fiddling with the end of her ponytail. "There's, ah, an article, and..."

"This guy looks exactly like you." Blackstar said bluntly, flipping over the paper and holding it out so he could see.

RENOUNED MUSICIAN DESEASED, the title blared.

"Carl Evans, aged forty-nine, dies of a heart attack last night. He was a world-renouned musician and will be greatly missed by both his family and his fans. This reporter went in to discuss the lifed he lived with his wife, mother and son at the Evans household, in the city of Chicago..." Maka reads, then her eyes skim to the picture and she forgets about the article completely, sucking in a breath.

The man in the picture has white hair and dark eyes that they all seem to realize would be red, had the picture been color. And his teeth are normal, not sharp like Soul's, but theres a certain factor to their faces that's the same. Mostly this man looks smug, as though he knows he's better than you and won't hesitate to say so.

Soul isn't smug, she knows, they all know. That's the main difference.

"Soul...is that..." Her words falter in the middle, and she just looks at him, waiting for an answer to her unspoken question.

"What, you didn't think I had a dad?" His voice is bitter. "Get real, Maka."

"You coulda been a virgin birth." Patty offers, seeming, as usual, not to realize the gravity of the situation.

His laugh pushes itself out of him without him meaning it to. "No way. I formed from a fucking cloud of pure coolness."

Patty giggles delightedly, and the rest of them are silent as Soul reads the article, his jaw clenched and his face stony.

_His son, Wes, nearly broke into tears and said something that this reporter could only deduce was a plea to his father: "Put this in the paper. Come home, I don't care if you leave again after, just come for the funeral. I need you here. You can leave again after it's all over, just...please."_

_Please._

Wes was talking to his brother in secret and not in secret, using their old code of saying something meant for Soul to recognize in a newspaper article. He needed him.

Soul folded the paper numbly and handed it to Liz. Then he turned and started walking down the DWMA's steps, not saying anything. He stopped about ten steps down and turns back, remembering almost too late that he needs to tell them he's leaving.

"Tell Stein I'll be back in a few days. Maybe a week. I've got a funeral to go to."

Before he can turn again, Maka's running down the steps to take his hand. "I'm coming with you."

He doesn't object besides giving her a strangely empty smile. "You don't know what you're in for. My mom'll tear you to shreds when she finds out you can't carry a tune."

"I'll handle it." she tells him, squaring her shoulders. "Anyway, you need me."

That, he can't argue with.

* * *

The casket is magnificent. He can only assume it's made out of something very expensive, becuase it sure as hell doesn't look like it's wood. Then again, he shouldn't really be surprised. His old man wouldn't settle for wood, not if there was something better...

He's been standing next to the casket for a long while, Maka silent next to him. She dug a black dress out from somewhere and found him a suit, even though half of him wanted to march in in his loud yellow jacket and his reddish pants that he used to wear, and mess up his father's quiet, orderly funeral.

He hasn't cried. He hasn't smiled, either. No one else is here. They've all left, and he'd hidden himself at the back for the whole thing, waiting until everyone was gone to look at his father's dead face, and now that he's here all he can feel is numb and cold.

He's dead, he really, seriously dead, and it's fucking scaring him. He remembers thinking it, when he was twelve and sick of living in a place where his parents didn't care.

And thinking it whenever he saw a piano and he twiched, wanting to play so bad but hearing that voice in his head saying he wasn't good enough, not even being able to do one of the things that used to bring him so much joy.

_I wish you were dead._

And now it's true, and he's shaking, and this shouldn't be happening.

"Why do I care so much?" he mumbles, and then his voice gets louder, and suddenly he's mad. "_Why do I fucking care so much? You hated me!"_

He feels Maka's fingers link through his. "He was your father, Soul." she whispers. "Of course you care." She pulls him close, and he feels how he's shaking, and her arms around him are steady and sure.

He rest his head on her shoulder, and closes his eyes, trying not to cry.

"Don't hold it back, Soul." she scolds. "It's the best thing right now for you to cry."

"Whatever, Dr. Phil."

"I'm serious."

"Oh, my gosh!"

They pull away from each other an inch, enough so that Soul can lift his head and the woman that's just walked in can see the tearstains on his cheeks.

"So people are trying to mourn here, lady. What else is new? It's a goddammed funeral parlor." Soul tells her, his voice exausted.

The woman doesn't say anything, just looks at him, her eyes going steadily wider as she takes them in, unril she calls out the door. "Wes? Wes, I think you should come here."

"Sara? What's going on this-" A man, looking to be in his twenties, stops dead behind the woman in the doorway. And Soul knows what Maka's seeing-a man that's tall and thin and handsome and looks just like Soul with the exception of the teeth.

"You're home?" Wes's voice is unsteady, confused, and overjoyed, and Soul manages a smile for his brother.

"For now."

"C'mere, you fucking idiot." Wes says, and the two hug each other, and Soul realizes suddenly just how much Wes missed him as they embrace, because he's being hugged like he's been gone for forever and didn't write or call or-

Wait. He did do that, didn't he? He never said anything. He could've been dead for all they knew.

"'M sorry." he mumbles. "I should've-I just thought they'd drag me back if they knew where I was." With a bit of his old bitterness, he adds, "Don't think anyone cared, though-"

"Granny and I cared." Wes interrupts, his voice tight, pulling away from the hug and just grabbing him by the shoulders, shaking him a little. "So did Mom-she worried about you. She won't act like it, when you see her now, but she did."

"But Dad didn't."

"I'm sorry." Wes doesn't offer up any lies about how his father loved him, and that's good.

That's good.

"Granny's out in the car, by the way. She'll want to see you."

"I've probably been disowned." Soul mutters, and Wes's lips twitch.

"Yeah, well, I'm the head of the Evans house now. I hereby announce you...uh...not-disowned." Wes says, and Maka stifles a giggle. Wes raises an eyebrow at her. "Who's this?"

"I forgot how annoying an older brother is." Soul says, looking away, and this time the woman, Sara, laughs, and Soul imitates his brother's voice. "_Who's this?"_

Sara smiles. "I'm Wes's fiancé. My name's Sara Reiley."

"You're that girl who used to babysit me, when I was like, seven or eight or whatever." Soul realizes, and smirks. "Wait a minute."

"Soul-"

"She wasn't a babysitter at all, was she? You invited her over-"

"_Soul-"_

"-when Mom and Dad and Granny were out, because you _liked_ her. You were _hooking up-"_

_"Soul, shut up!"_

"-with my _babysitter!"_ Soul howls with laughter, bending over with his arms around himself, and eventually he stops, wiping his eyes, and there's patches of red in Wes's cheeks. Sara's giggling, and Maka's flat out laughing, though not as exuberantly. "Oh man, that's great. That's the funniest shitting thing I've heard in, like, twelve hours." He straightens himself up and looks at his brother. "You gotta admit that's hilarious."

"Yes, yes, hilarious." Wes grumbles, but his anger softens. "Anyway, you never answered my question before. Who's-"

"I'm Maka, Soul's meister. Nice to meet you." she says, holding out a hand.

Wes shakes it, looking puzzled. "What's a meister?"

"She's the one that kills Kishin with me when I'm in weapon form, like, she holds the weapon. It's just what they call them in the DWMA." Soul says, and shoots a look at the dead body. Wes follows it, and nods.

"You're right, we should go."

* * *

After a flurry of more introductions and Soul's grandmother lecturing him for about five minutes on running away and not sending any letters, (and it didn't seem to be that he'd run away that was upsetting her, just that he didn't write) along with his mother's face going white and her looking at him for a moment before disappearing up the stairs, him going into his old room and gathering up some records, albums, and sheet music that he seemed excited about, Maka confessing that she didn't know anything about music and the whole family, even Sara, staring at her, before Granny burst into laughter and patted her on the back and said affectionately "Soully boy, you picked a good one. I like her already."

They do leave, eventually, and they all hug him again, and he's confused because this feels like family should be and it's never been this easy before. Wes drives them to the train station.

He struggles, trying to ask, and finally Wes sighs, recognizing what he's asking, and crosses his arms. "You didn't know we cared before because you were twelve years old and you were jealous of me. And just Granny wasn't enough. Now you're somewhere where you've made something of yourself and you're not overshadowed by me anymore."

It's blunt and to the point, and it makes sense. He nods. "I'm sorry I left."

"Don't be." Wes says, grinning a little. "Just be glad you're back again."

"I'll visit whenever I'm around." he says with confidence.

"You better." Wes warns. "Or I'll come down to Death City and kill you myself."

He laughs, and suddenly things feel normal, or at least more like it should be, adn he takes Maka's hand and they walk onto the train, together.

* * *

_A/N: WHERE DID THIS COME FROM JEEZ. But I hope y'all like it._

_Also, I thought I'd sort out my headcanon for their ages: Tsubaki and Liz are sixteen in the events of the series, Kid, Maka, Soul, and Crona are fifteen, and Patty and Blackstar are fourteen. This is just my ideas, becuase I'm not sure if they sepecify actual ages and all that. And if I say Soul's sixteen, for a oneshot, then all the other's ages would change accordingly-Tsubaki and Liz woul be seventeen, ect._

_I'm not quite sure if this makes sense, so any corrections/suggestions are welcome. _

_I don't own Soul Eater._

_Please R&R!_

_(Also, XxXPeaceReaperXxX, I'm not on Flipnote Hatena. Anywhere I am, I'm either ninjee or ninjakittyepicness.)_

_Much love, Ninjee~_


	15. but i believe in you and me

**_A/N: The following contains a lot of bad stuff. Drugs, killing, Brooklyn, ect. Just thought I'd warn you in case that's not your thing. _**

_I don't believe in fairy tales  
No, I don't believe in fairy tales  
But I believe in you and me_

_~Wonderland, Natalia Kills_

* * *

There are demons, there are angels. And there are those in between.

* * *

Once upon a time, there were two girls who were born not-quite-angel and not-quite-demon. They lived in a big, sprawling city full of angels and demons and more that were in-between-ers, like them.

They were sisters, and they loved each other more than the world.

Their lives were a mess of horrible, unforeseen circumstances. Their father was lost to them, their mother went mad and was soon gone as well. And then they were two, just two.

The part of the city that the two not-quite-eithers lived in was full of darkness and madness and lies. The elder swore on her life to protect her sister.

_(this was very nearly selfless, but her reasons were selfish-she could not bear to lose her sister too)_

And so the elder took it upon herself to become mother, father, sister, brother, savior, protector, friend. And she grew up far too fast, while her sister was stuck in her childhood, her mind refusing to accept that she had grown.

They set off down the path of demons.

_(they held hands and danced through the darkness of the back alleys, blood dripping from their intertwined fingers, they stole money from rich purses and killed all resisters, taking no prisoners because it was the only way to survive)_

Hands, fingers, clawed at the elder and finally she gave, laying down her price and letting the men of the street have their way with her.

But they never touched her sister, of this she made sure, and she became almost like the mother she despised,

_(taking pills to forget what had happened in those dark alleyways or trashy hotel rooms, and to forget what she'd done to earn the money stuffed in her pockets)_

She took them to forget it all. But never to forgive.

They waltzed down the path to demons, holding each other tightly, the younger shaking her sister out of her haze and the elder keeping her sister as safe as she could.

_(this went on until they could count their ribs and begged, prayed for release)_

* * *

There was a boy born an angel who started to slip. An angel was an impossibility, at least for him, and they asked too much, too much, and hated him for being unable to fulfill their impossible demands.

He wore a mask for them, a mask of smiles, of normalcy. He kept it on, fearing that if he removed it, showed who he was, his mind that screamed for evil hymns played on a inky black piano because it was all he had inside, his red eyes and sharp teeth then they would leave him for a devil and forget. Brush him under the rug like so much else.

_(he clung to this hell disguised as heaven because he was afraid to be alone)_

One day, the boy angel made a discovery-he was not one of them. And so he left, and set off on his own to find a place where he could belong.

_(he was still afraid, but he was well practiced with wearing masks by this time, so he constructed another)_

He was now a boy with a cool facade that never cracked, wandering the world of the not-quite-eithers, and he found that it suited him better.

* * *

There was once a girl, born different, born special. Her brother was not, and this made her sad, for she loved him dearly and wanted him to be happy. So she did as he wished, played his favorite games and always his, in her efforts to make him smile. He usually did, but sometimes she could see the ache in his eyes when he looked at her and knew he wanted what she had.

_(she would have given it to him gladly, to spare him the pain)_

All she wanted was for him to know how much she cared, that someone loved him and he wasn't alone, but he forgot.

One day he left and she did too, crying as she did because he didn't love her anymore. He had left her world of angels and become something else,

_(and his eyes pulsed, scared and evil and mad, when he looked at her)_

He loved her no more, but she loved him still, and her cheeks were wet with her tears.

* * *

Once there was a boy born from a clan of demons. He was a god, or at least, it was his destiny to become one.

He waited every day for this moment, and one day he met a quiet angel girl, born special, and was convinced that she could help him get where he needed to go. She was kind, and she listened to him, and understood what it was he wanted.

_(she gave him his encores, clapped harder when everyone else had gone home, and he loved her for that)_

But as he went on his mad quest for power, for godhood, he turned down the path of his clan without realizing what he'd done.

_(but he was a god, wasn't he? he could handle this, it was fine, he'd come out on top, after all)_

And so he walked down his path of blood, surpassing all the others, his lust for power his undoing.

* * *

There was also a girl. She had a rush of bravery inside her, a power all her own, and didn't trust men due to circumstances beyond her control.

_(you stop trusting any of them after you wake from your nightmares but when you go to your mama for comfort you don't see your mama next to your papa in the bed, you see someone else, someone who's wrong, wrong, wrong, and you vow not to let any of them hurt you like your mama was hurt)_

She was born to an angel and a not-quite-either, who she saw as a demon because she let her own hatred get in the way. He loved her dearly, this not-quite-either, but he was no good at being what she needed.

She vowed to become better than he could ever be.

* * *

There was once a boy. He was born an angel as well, but the demands weren't impossible to him. He was able to do anything, this pale, cold angel boy, even stop his own heart.

_(which came in handy when his mother died and it was breaking)_

He could see people's souls, as angels did. He did everything perfectly,

_(in sets of eight and perfect circles, for the symmetry of the thing, a matter of principle)_

the way it was supposed to be, balanced.

But despite it all the boy looked in the mirror and saw a demon. He was a failure, a monster, horrid, evil, garbage, and it was all he could ever see.

He walked a path that is all his own, his self-loathing guiding him.

* * *

Once, two demons are saved by an angel.

Their path of demonhood crosses with his, and he looks at the bloodstains on their souls, and their haunted, empty eyes, and the perfection of them, and opens his hands to them.

At first, it was a standstill. They can join him, but they do not, they run, too afraid to let go. But their paths keep twisting until they cross again, and this time they take his hands in theirs.

_(slowly, the blood fades, as do the scars)_

The elder is still mother, sister, friend, but she doesn't have hands touching her anymore, can't feel her ribs or the demons inside of her coming out as she pulls the trigger. There are no more aching lungs from cigarette smoke.

_(and there are no more pills, stolen from shelves in drugstores and from people's houses, breaking into places just to get her hands on them, those pills that make her forget)_

They are whole, and now they are three.

* * *

One day, the boy who was once an angel finds a girl who is fighting to be the best. She extends an offer-he is like her father, she says, the same sort of not-quite-either, and so she wants to have his help to become better than her father and as good as her mother. All this she tells him, and he notes the pain in her eyes.

He plays her a song, slow, dark, hungry, angry, pained,

_(a last remnant of who he used to be)_

and agrees to help her.

He takes her hand, and is no longer alone.

* * *

Once, the girl, born different, sees her brother again. He is now special in a different way, a way that she has to take from him, and it hurts her to do so because all she wants is his happiness. But she knows this new power will eventually hurt him, even if it doesn't seem to now.

_(so she takes it from him, sorrowfully, to spare him the pain)_

All she wants is to remind him that someone loves him still, and he remembers.

She goes back and he does too, crying as he does because he loves her again. He has left her world of angels and become something else.

_(and his eyes pulse, scared and evil and mad, when he looks in the mirror)_

He was a monster, and she loved him still.

She is the saving of him. He dies in her arms, wet from her tears.

* * *

Once, the boy who would be a god realizes what path he's now on and becomes afraid.

_(he's a god, but he can't handle this)_

He calls out to the girl who agreed to help him, his quiet angel girl who he thought would make him into a god. Instead she's reaching for him, cleansing him from the darkness he's wandered into, saving him from his strange laughing madness.

_(saving him just as she did her brother, who she still cries over in her sleep, and he remembers her pain and vows to help)_

He doesn't lust for power anymore. He has something better.

* * *

The girl who is trying to be best finds a boy with red eyes and sharp teeth who is not-quite-either but not her father.

She dances with him in a black room, and he plays the piano into the wavelength they make together. He saves her over and over and she saves him in return, the two of them growing closer, and for a while she's almost afraid.

_(that vow she made long ago is dangerously close to getting broken)_

She holds his hand as they travel and save people together, and one day she thinks that maybe all men aren't the same after all.

One day, she falls for him.

_(and this in itself makes her better than her father could ever be)_

* * *

Once, the pale angel boy who thought he was garbage saves two demons without realizing it.

Suddenly they are with him all the time, and instead of one he is three.

_(they mess up his orderly life and his orderly house but he can't ever bring himself to hate them or even be angry)_

They're perfect, those two girls, and he's saved them. As he learns more about them,

_(the elder in particular and the hands grasping for her and the little white pills that made her forget how it felt)_

he realizes what it means to them, what he has done, and what, exactly, he has saved them from.

It's only when he looks in the mirror one morning and hears no voices telling him he's nothing that he realizes they may have saved him too.

* * *

_Fin._

* * *

_A/N: I'm so sorry I haven't posted! November's NaNoWriMo, so I've been crazy busy. I finally had some time and inspiration this weekend :) Hope you guys aren't to mad with me, eheheheh. And sorry it's not fluff. This was begging to be written._

_Anyway, hope you like this. More of my rubbish headcanons, but you know. My story, I can post all the rubbish headcanons I like :)_

_Please R&R! _

_I don't own anything but plot. _

_Much love, _

_~Ninjee_


	16. for every law, there's a loophole (AU)

Her first rule, the first of many that she made herself follow, was that all men were the same-give them an inch and they'll take a mile.

She was careful not to give them that inch.

She'd learned her lesson with Papa, anyway. Whenever they went out, to have fun, and Liz or Patty tried to set her up with someone, she was cold and distant until they got the hint and walked away. Today was no different.

They hadn't had to drag her out of her nice, cozy apartment, this time, because it was Patty's birthday, her eighteenth to be exact, and it had been a celebration. So of course she'd come. Even though this dress they'd gotten for her was entirely too low cut, and Liz, grinning like a madwoman, had thrown her over to various boys during the night so far.

No, she couldn't be upset with them, not today, at least. Tomorrow, when it wasn't Patty's birthday any longer, then she would allow herself to be angry.

Black Star had recommended this place, and that had made her skeptical before they'd even arrived. It was apparently a under-twenty-one club with great music, although she wasn't hearing any so far, but then again, her taste was very different from anyone else she knew.

She held her cherry Coke in one hand, swishing the contents of the can absently, and watched Patty dance with Liz in the middle of the floor. She liked to dance, of course, but usually she waited until Patty or Tsubaki was free and went to dance with them. It happened sooner or later, when Liz would see a boy across wherever they were and go to him. They always danced with her. No boy was immune to Liz Thompson. Patty always looked happy for her, and sorry when none of the flings worked out. Liz was looking for an extraordinary boy, and Maka didn't have the heart to tell her there was no such thing.

Today it hadn't started as soon as it usually did, probably because it was Patty's birthday. Liz loved her sister to death, even though sometimes she could forget about dancing with Patty due to being a bit boy-crazy, and so she'd want to make her happy. Today was special, anyway.

Tsubaki was very matter-of-fact, not boy-crazy at all. The one problem with her was that she was dating Black Star.

He was a total jerk. He was crude, and loudmouthed, and nothing that suited a sweet, gorgeous, quiet girl like Tsubaki. But she'd stayed with him, for two years so far. Maka had tried to tell her so many times that she should dump him, find someone better, but she was firm in her belief that there was no one better. They'd actually had a few very bad fights on the subject.

She sighed and shook her head. Well, she had told them. If they got their hearts broken, she would be there.

"Alright, you guys, havin' a good time?" a lazy voice called out, and she glanced up. There was a new band entering the stage. The one talking was the keyboardist, a tall and lanky boy with bone white hair and red eyes. An albino, she noted, with some surprise. His skin was a bit dark for an albino. Maybe he only had some of the genes. Or he'd bleached his hair and was wearing contacts, she thought with a chuckle. There was always that.

When he grinned at the cheering crowd, his teeth were sharp. "We're Soul Wavelength." he announced.

"And we're here to eat your souls!" the drummer shouted, and the crowd laughed.

The boy tapped the microphone, and the crowd quieted. "I understand we have a birthday in the audience." he said, grandly. "I don't do this for everybody, but just this once, because she's a friend of a friend, she gets to request a song."

Patty ran up to the stage and hauled herself onto it, grinning at him. "Thanks, mister!"

Maka watched as the boy took in Patty's bow headband, giraffe print shoes, tank top and skirt, obvious childishness. But he surprised her and grinned at the just-turned-eighteen-year-old. "So you're Star's girlfriend's friend?"

Patty nodded, beaming. "I get to pick a song?"

"Call it a birthday present. Mostly from that ass Star. But from me, too."

She bowed to the crowd, and Liz leveled glares at the snickerers in the back. "Okay, 'm Patty. And I want them to play...uh, Sis? What was that song you we're playin' yesterday?"

"Last of the American Girls." Liz called.

"Oooh, not bad." the drummer said.

"Yeah, we can work with that." the red-eyed keyboardist said, grinning at Patty. "Your sister's got taste. Happy birthday, kid."

She beamed even brighter, and sat on the edge of the stage as they played the song for her. Liz looked up at her with such pride in her eyes that everyone smiled, their hearts touched a little. Even Maka felt her face melt into a genuine smile at what had happened.

That was the first time she ever saw him. A boy with red eyes who made two of her friends beam in happiness.

* * *

The next time she saw him, she was walking with Tsubaki on their way to a cafe, where Liz and Patty worked. True to form, Liz had met a guy at the club on Patty's birthday, but they hadn't broken up yet, which in itself was sort of unusual.

"He's extraordinary." Liz had said on the phone that morning, and Maka could tell she was beaming. "Truly extraordinary."

Maka had just listened. The lie of a boy or man that could actually care pounded in her ears, but she couldn't bear to say anything, because Liz sounded so damn happy.

Tsubaki's eyes brightened, and she waved across the street. "Black Star!"

Maka groaned inwardly, but manged a smile as he ran over. "Tsubaki! Hey! Why are you two here?" he said.

"Liz is gonna introduce us to her new boyfriend." Tsubaki said, hugging him hard and kissing him once, quick_._

Black Star's friend laughed, and she turned her head and looked at him, just to see who he was, as he answered. "Hell of a lot more interesting than our reasons. We were just hungry."

It was the red-eyed keyboardist, and Maka looked away.

"Hi. You're Soul, right? That was so nice of you to play a song for Patty the other night." Tsubaki smiled, and he nodded.

"Yeah, she seemed like a nice kid. Soul Evans." he added, to Maka. "Who're you?"

"Maka Albarn." she said, but her voice wasn't stiff, it was warm, the tone she used on friends. He had done something nice for Patty on her birthday. She couldn't hate him or ignore him or even dislike him very much.

"Maka." he repeated. "Okay."

"Cmon, I'm starved." Black Star said, and they all followed him inside. Maka was attacked around the waist by Patty, who roller-skated towards her and gave her a tight hug. (After watching too many old movies, she'd started bringing roller skates to work, asking her boss about permission to use them until he gave in.)

Liz waved from behind the counter, and Maka waved back. There was a boy sitting at the counter, right across from her, and they were sharing some fries. He was tall, thin and wiry, with black hair and eyes that were hazel-gold. His hair had three thick white stripes in it, but only on one half of his head. Maka assumed they were bleached in or something.

"Guys, this is Kid." Liz said, and Maka noticed that their hands were wound together on the countertop. He, Kid, was looking at Liz, just at her. And there was something that she recognized in his eyes, but it wasn't an expression that she'd ever seen on a couple before. She'd seen it on Liz's face, when she looked at Patty, though not this intense, and she could put a name to it.

Adoration.

* * *

She saw Soul quite a lot over the next few weeks. He and Black Star tried to teach them all to play basketball, but she was never any good at it. She still liked to come, though, to talk to them all. And Liz's new boyfriend came, too.

Kid, in a nutshell, was strange. He had a bad case of OCD which made him yell at them, and sometimes get depressed, at weird times over weird things. Black Star laughed at him, but Soul never did, just rolled his eyes sometimes. And Liz and Patty always mangaed to cheer him up, and when the bouts were over he always looked sort of guilty. She learned more about his problem as time went on, and was told that it had been bothering him since he was a child, maybe even since he was a baby, he didn't know.

But once she went with him across the street to buy some drinks for everyone (she didn't actually play in the game, usually, and he'd been sitting out that day) and he had a fit in the store, looking at everything, and it was ten times worse than it usually was. He shook and stared around him with wild eyes and his arms jerked around like he was trying to pull himself around in ten different directions, and he was muttering to himself and it sounded so strange and sinister that Maka panicked and yelled for Liz. The moment she got there, a part of him relaxed, and it was better, or at least not as bad as it had been.

She pulled him up to a standing position and put her arms around him, and slowly he stopped shaking and the wildness went away from his eyes. She pulled away then, shaking him, and said in a low voice that he could _never_ do that again.

Maka saw the panic that was barely settling down in her eyes and how tense she was, and that same steady love in her eyes that she'd heard over the phone in her voice and seen in the cafe that first day, that adoration, and she thought privately that this boy was going to be the death of Liz Thompson, because she loved him too much. He loved her too much, too, but she didn't want to see that, she wanted to be right in her knowledge that all men were the same, and she was good at blocking things that she didn't want to see.

She always had been, talents like that were groomed in you when you didn't want to see anything your father or his girlfriends, the hate in the air, how no one seemed to try.

Trying, until these people that she now knew, had always seemed just a little bit impossible.

Her father hadn't tried. Or, he'd tried in the wrong ways, trying to win her love with presents or jokes instead of stopping the things he was doing that hurt her. He could have stayed home with her sometimes and not left her alone to go to a bar, or he could've talked to her like she was a person (he still used baby talk with her even after she grew up) but he never seemed to care enough to do that. And her mother had loved her, in her own way, but she was so often gone. Business trips and traveling stopped her from being home much. And when she was home, she treated Maka as a much older child, which was in a way, refreshing, but still not right. She didn't want to be a baby who couldn't figure out what was going on, as she was to her father, and she didn't want to be an adult who was ranted to about her father by her mother.

They didn't try hard enough and held her between two worlds, and all it did was make her hard and cold.

(But then there was Tsubaki, who was so sweet and kind that you couldn't dislike her, and poor Crona, who'd suffered at his mother's hands, the two of them had found common ground on that, on that feeling of loneliness, and he was such a sweet boy, asexual, he'd told her, so it wasn't as if he was going to go and cheat on anyone himself. And then Liz and Patty, Tsubaki's friends, who'd opened her up as much as was possible and made her not so cold. These girls and Crona tried, and they were her friends, and they treated her as herself and didn't change the way they spoke around her or keep secrets or anything, and this was all she'd thought that she needed.)

And now there was this boy, Soul Evans, and the little giddy rush she got when she saw him scared her more than anything in the entire world.

She'd had crushes before, and they all faded eventually. She only liked how they looked, perhaps their brains, and that wouldn't change the fact that they would never be true to her, such a thing was an impossibility, the stuff of fairytales.

She needed to keep her distance.

* * *

So then why had she invited him over, why was she talking with him, why was she having such a good time?

He'd missed his train back home, summer was over and he was going back to school, this would be his second year of music school and it was sort of impressive that he was selected to go to a musical college, scholarship and all. She was going back to school too, only her school was here, in town, and she was on her second year of literature and law classes, which had seemed to impress everyone.

It had been late, late enough that strange words came pouring out of her mouth,

_"You can stay the night at my apartment, I've got a spare room."_

and he said yeah, sure, and as he was saying that she was screaming at herself, why had she done this? She knew it was going to end badly, and this was _one of her rules,_ and she was breaking it.

He was sprawled on her couch, lying haphazardly across it, and she was curled up on her armchair with a blanket wrapped around her, and they'd been talking for god knows how long now, it could've been hours, days, months, she wouldn't have cared.

Oh, god, why was she doing this? This went against everything she stood for, everything she knew, damn him, damn him with his stupid snarky jokes that made her giggle like an idiot and his lazy grin.

"Okay, your turn."

"Right." he drawls, tilting his head back to look at the ceiling. "Favorite ice cream flavor."

"Be serious."

"I am serious! That's a personal question! Would you go with the plethora of taste and texture that comes along with Rocky Road? Or are you boring and decide to play it safe with vanilla? This stuff's important." He says all this with a totally straight face, and even as she laughs, she wonders if he's being serious.

"God, look at you, using big words like 'plethora'."

"Shut up, Maka, answer the damn question."

"Okay, okay, um...strawberry, maybe? Or the kind that tastes like cake batter? What's that one called?"

"It's called Cake Batter, dumbass."

"Shut up!" she growls at him. "What's yours?"

He considers it, leaning back. "Probably that Ben & Jerry's kind. Half Baked. It's like cookie dough and fudge brownie together, it's like the food of the gods."

"That does sound good." she says, tilting her head a little. "Okay, my turn."

They continue like this, asking a million questions, it seems, and neither of them get tired, they just talk and talk and talk and soon she knows what seems like everything about him, how he plays the piano, how once he broke his arm falling off the monkey bars, how he used to watch hockey with his grandma when he was little, how he loves jazz and the stupid carnivals with cheesy games and greasy food. And she's telling him things she's never told anyone, like when she loves fireworks, and electronic music (which he hates, and her saying she likes it makes him rant about the evils of electronica for about five minutes), how she loves watching superhero movies with Liz and Patty, how her favorite book in the world is The Book Thief, and she explains it to him excitedly, how it's about World War II and is narrated by Death, and he looks at her and declares her a total nerd. She hits him, and then he complains that she's violent, too.

They end up falling asleep in her living room, and when she wakes up, she makes them both pancakes and frets to herself once he's thanked her and left to catch his train.

(He's going to music school, and he'll only visit on the weekends, and it's disappointing that she won't see him daily, and it shouldn't be.)

(It really shouldn't be.)

* * *

She misses him. Which is the most terrifying thing in the world.

She misses how he could let down her guard and how he smiled and how she sometimes felt like maybe she could have a fairy tale of her own.

She is a mess. Inside, at least. Outside, she is the same old Maka, who is best in the class and works at a bookshop for extra money, who disapproves of guys and dating. Outside, she's fine, and none of her friends notice the difference except for Liz commenting on how Soul finally got her into some good music when she notices the jazz on her iPod.

Inside, she misses him, and every time she sees Tsubaki get a call from Black Star and the way her face lights up, she jealous. And it's terrible. She feels like she's losing herself, and all over this boy.

She hates him, she decides.

(But every time she gets a text from him, she jumps to her phone and texts him back with a grin on her face.)

* * *

He can't come back for the first few weekends. Finally, about a month in, he's caught up on his work, and there are no gigs arranged for his band. And so he texts her as he's getting on the train.

_I'm visiting. Clean off your couch. -Soul_

_My couch _is_ clean. What, you think I keep everything messy all the time like you? -Maka_

_Figure of speech, idiot. -Soul_

_I'm going to punch you so hard when you get here, I swear. -Maka_

"Pay attention, Miss Albarn." Ox snickers from next to her. She scowls and looks at her phone one last time before she puts it away.

_Aw, come on, don't be like that. Didn't you miss me? -Soul_

She can _feel _ the smirk in his tone.

_Yeah, I missed you a lot._

Oh no. No_ way_. Delete.

_Course I didn't miss you._

Lie. Delete.

_Why, did _you_ miss _me_?_

Stupid. Delete.

She stares at the screen, then snaps the phone closed and tries to think of an answer.

She wonders for a second if he's as anxious sending that text as she is trying to answer it.

* * *

She goes to Liz, who had been in a relationship for three months or so now, which is longer than any of her other boyfriends have lasted. Some of them she'd dumped, some of them had dumped her. Patty had been an important factor. If Patty didn't like the guy, (which normally didn't happen, Patty liked mostly everyone) or if the guy was unnerved by Patty (her childishness and loudness and strangeness tended to make people treat her different) Liz would leave him. Her sister was too important to risk.

But Kid treated Patty with respect, and it was natural, not staged. He had his own problems, his own differences, and so he respected hers.

In any case, Liz is the person to go to if you need help answering a text from a boy who has accidentally gotten into your heart and scares you to death because you like him and you shouldn't.

It has to be said for Liz, she doesn't say anything beyond a raised eyebrow when Maka walks over with her problem. She knows Maka's feelings on boys and liking them, and she doesn't rush it. She just looks at the message, types one out in response, and shows it to Maka for confirmation.

_'Course I missed you, dummy. Now hurry up and get here. -Maka_

She stares at it, and then presses Send, and starts to pace.

Liz grins at her with sympathy. "It's sort of a nightmare, isn't it?"

Maka nods, and Liz sighs.

"Do you like him? As in actually like him? As in you don't think he's automatically a cheating bastard because he's of the male gender?"

"...Yes."

"But you think you shouldn't like him, that's it, isn't it?" Liz guesses.

"...Yes."

"Look, Maka." Liz says, sitting down and patting the bench next to her. "You deserve this. Why do you think you don't?"

"It's not possible." Her voice cracks and she winces. "It's-it's not gonna work out, so why try? I mean, my papa-"

"Was the way he was." Liz interrupted. "But not every guy's like that. My dad wasn't like that. Neither was Tsubaki's dad, or Kid's, and Kid definitely isn't, neither is Black Star, annoying as he may be. And Soul's not like that, either. Your dad's just one guy out of all the other guys that wouldn't cheat on a girl."

It's a thought that she's never really bothered considering, and it makes her stop and think. And she doesn't feel so freaked out when her phone buzzes and she fumbles for it immediately.

_Coming, jeez. I'm not driving the train, it's not like I can make it go faster. What took you so long? -Soul_

_I was in class. -Maka_

_What, and that's more important than your long lost friend coming back for a weekend? -Soul_

_I do want to get my degree. You have to do something called 'paying attention' to get one. -Maka_

_Very funny. I'll be there in about fifteen minutes. -Soul_

"Let's go meet him there." Liz says, sqeezing her arm, and she feels the unspoken message. _It's okay to feel like this. It's okay, Maka._

* * *

They all are there when he gets off the train, and he looks happy to see them, even after he gives a few annoyed comments about them being a welcoming committee.

He hugs them, Patty and Liz and Tsubaki, and knocks fists with Kid and Black Star, and then hugs her, maybe a second longer than the other girls, and by some miracle she doesn't blush and give herself away.

At her house, they keep up their game of questions, and she thinks that she could do this forever.

* * *

_A/N: Ninjee here. Sorry this took so long to get posted, it's a bit longer than usual to make up for that xD It's Soma with a bunch of everybody else :)Hope you like! _

_Please R&R. _

_I don't own Soul Eater, or the bits of Sarah Dessen books that i took the inspiration from. or the song "The Only Exception", which was also inspiration-y. _

_Much love,_

_~Ninjee_


	17. white roses

_Sleep well, my friend, there will be another moment, we'll meet again, just let it go  
(please stay, I'm not strong enough for the both of us, what was I supposed to do, you know I love you)  
Sleep well, goodnight, you're something to remember, I wish that you were here by my side_

_~Everything's an Illusion and Stay by Mayday Parade_

* * *

"Is your dad a guy like you, Kiddo? Or is he just smoke?"

Unlike most times, Patty seemed to be waiting for a answer. He swallowed, and his mind flickered to his father's face, something he hadn't seen in so long that he'd nearly forgotten it, but how could he? It was so much like his own, only the hair was longer, like Spirit's, really, down to his shoulders, and the thick white lines went all the way around the elder Reaper's head...

His father didn't take off his cloak or his mask anymore, ever. To eat, he moved it to the side and let it fall back when he chewed, and he manipulated his shadows, the ones that twisted in the Reaper's Cloak, to give him jolly-looking hands and no face, to completely hide his body. And Kid could understand, after all, the last time anyone had seen his father in his human body, he'd terrified them in his rage, his grief.

"I don't really know anymore." he told Patty, and that seemed to suffice.

He hadn't been lying, he _didn't_ know, not really. His father's body could have dissolved, from lack of use, from wanting no reminders, from wanting not to feel. There are days when Kid wraps his own Reaper's cloak around all but his eyes and doesn't move. He feels untouchable in that cloak, like nothing can ever worry him again.

Liz worries about him, when he does this. She always sits next to him until he pulls himself out of the cocoon of his cloak and then her just looks at him, and he feels bad, in the back of his mind, because she seems so afraid. She hugs him, tightly, every time. And once she says, shaky, "Just come back, okay? When you do that, you just stare into space and you get all blank and you're not there anymore, so just promise me, promise you'll always come back."

He promises. His father, he knows, once said something that was the same.

(_He had a mother once, a woman who was beautiful as moonlight on water. The little boy who would be Death loved his mother and his father, and for a brief time, things went well. His mother was warm and her skin was soft when she rocked him to sleep, and he keeps her blue eyes close in his heart, along with his father's golden ones, which he hasn't seen in a very long time.)_

His mother was a meister, a full-blood human, and lovely, with thick black hair and dark blue eyes and a kind soul. His father was more alive then, and he never hid, he walked around like Kid does now, his cloak twisting and trailing behind him and his mask hanging from his shoulder. His father's human body is something that he can barely remember, but he knows it was tall and thin, and he was pale and his skin was cold. His hair was black and hung to his shoulders limply, and he never wore suits, just white shirts and sometimes jeans, sometimes pants. Kid remembers these things in a catalog in his mind, and when he opens the drawer marked _Father: Before _these things are there.

There is a file marked _Mother _ as well, and _Father: After _and _Liz_ and _Patty_ and others, a million of them, stored in his head, perfect and organized.

Sometimes his composure slips when he is alone and sometimes he goes stock still when he sees a white rose, or hears a laugh that sounds like her.

_(sometimes he spins on his heel and looks for black hair and blue eyes and a crowd, _MotherMotherMother_ pounding in his ears like a heartbeat, skin white as snow hair black as ebony)_

He has never approved of fairy tales because his didn't come true, when the princess slipped and fell the prince's kisses couldn't wake her up. If she'd been like them she wouldn't have died. Cancer is a human disease. He can't get it. She could, and he always thinks _maybe maybe maybe if we'd had more time, we could've done something, we could have saved her._

And he remembers his mother in her garden and how his father had her rosebushes taken out and planted by her grave, and sometimes he leaves Liz and Patty at home and goes to it, and sits with his back against it and breathes in roses and the smell of her, she always smelled like roses.

His father took his mother's soul in his hands and kissed it before he pushed it into the beyond, that was a Reaper's job, to put people's souls where they need to go, and he thinks of having to do that for Liz or Patty and _ohgodno_, his stomach constricts.

And sometimes he just sits and he wishes and he wants her back, because he doesn't have a mother and his father is half of what he was, once.

They find him, of course, his girls. They find him next to the grave, and he is lying on his back and it is summer and the roses are settling over him, he's drowning in the scent of them, and he closes his eyes and _MotherMotherMother. _He doesn't know they're there until a manicured hand works through his hair, and then he opens his eyes, and stops himself from murmuring "Mother" the way he wants to.

"Hello." he says, uncertian, and Liz sighs.

"Look at you, hangin' out in a graveyard..." she says, and keeps sliding her fingers through his hair, brushing it off his forehead, rhythmic. He closes his eyes and there is that smell of roses again, combined with Liz's perfume.

His mother is gone. She died on a mission, her and her weapon, who was her best friend, a girl named Gianna who was a year younger than her. He knows a million things about his mother, either from his own experiences or stories he was told, and he wishes that he could have known her.

They don't know that it is a specific grave. His girls just see him in a graveyard and laugh and assume he came here because he's a Reaper and it's good for him, and they don't question it when he leaves for a long time.

He would tell them, but to them, the past is gone-the future is what matters. And so he never brings it up, he makes his visits to his mother's grave and waters her rosebushes and never says a word.

* * *

Some time later, his father calls him into the Death Room and talks to him, explaining everything about Reapers and their power and their responsibility.

Reapers can comtrol their own aging process. They can say when they will cast aside their immortality, and when they will begin it. It is a rule that you are supposed to wait until at least twenty human years, because there are to be no children controlling life and death.

His father explains that he cast aside his own immortality when he met Kid's mother. It is the first time he has spoken of her in a long, long time. Kid doesn't mention that bit, but he nods. He makes a note in his mind to never even begin his immortality. His rein will be a short one.

He tells his father this, and his father laughs softly and shakes his head, and does something that surprises him very much.

He takes off his mask.

The shadows underneath unfold from his face and Kid sees his father's eyes for the first time in eleven years. The thick white lines connecting on his head. His smile, more genuine than he remembers from the funeral.

"You plan to stay with them, then?" his father says, and Kid doesn't have to ask who he means.

"They need me." he says simply. "And I need them. Besides you, they're all I've got."

"I hope you have better luck than your father's had." Lord Death says, and he sighs. "I'm going to die soon. I can feel it. In a few years, perhaps longer, perhaps shorter, but I'm going."

"You'll be a good Reaper, Kid." his father says solemnly, looking him straight in the eyes. "Better than me."

"No one could be." Kid says quietly, and then leaves.

There is still _ohgodno_ when he thinks about the reality that someday, either he or his son will take the souls of Liz and Patty Thompson and send them away. But they won't be apart for too long. That had been what he'd feared, really-being here forever without them-no one could be like they are.

The moon is out and his girls are waiting for him at home, but he stops at his mother's rosebushes first.

"I miss you." he says aloud. "But Father will be coming soon."

The roses blow in the wind.

He is seventeen and he hasn't had a mother for a very long time, eleven years actually. He won't ever stop seeing her in crowds or smelling roses or seeing dark blue eyes.

He decides that someday, it'll be fine.

Someday he will be Death and he will have his own son, and he will fall in love (or maybe he already has) with a girl with caramel-gold hair and bright blue eyes, and he will grow old and die with her, if life works out. And maybe it will.

* * *

_A/N: Ended happier than I expected. Good, yes? This is a Christmas present for my dear friend Glow, found here: .com without the ( )._

_She requested Death the Kid. I did my best to oblige._

_I don't own. _

_Please R&R! I'm always grateful!_

_Inspiration came originally from Terrible Things by Mayday Parade. Lovely song._

_Much love, Ninjee_


	18. secret santa

It had been Maka's idea. They'd all heard of it, but none of them had ever done it before.

Maka was a force to be reckoned with when you told her 'no', so they went along with it, even though Soul announced that Secret Santa was sort of uncool. But she was used to him complaining, and she tuned it out.

Everyone knew automatically who got Kid, because the contents of Tsubaki's locker were organized (symmetrically, of course) and her gift was placed in the exact center of the shelf. He'd gotten her a cookbook, incidentally, full of strange recipes. And a locket necklace, small and silver, and symmetrical of course, and she smiled and wondered if Liz and Patty had helped him, or if it had just been the influence of two girls. She put a picture of her brother inside, so she'd wouldn't forget.

Tsubaki got Crona, and she baked for him, Christmas cookies and cupcakes and once simply left candy canes and fudge. She liked baking, and she always left enough so that Ragnarok could stuff himself silly and there would still be some for Crona to eat.

Crona got Patty. He was initially puzzled and afraid of the whole thing, as he always was, but Patty was fairly easy to shop for. He bought stuffed animals, for the first week three giraffes, two very small and one big enough to hug, and put them in her locker to find. She shrieked so loud the entire hallway could hear, and ran to her sister to say she's found a wife and kids for Jefferey and what should she name them? (The second week he got her candy canes, and Kid complained the whole day about how they were hanging out of the side of her mouth.)

Patty got Maka. She filled her locker painstakingly with white snowflakes cut out of paper, and a popcorn chain one, which Maka delightedly ate. She got her books, too, three in total, one's she'd been talking in a dreamy way about how good they were for ages. _The Book Thief, The Fault In Our Stars, _and _The Perks of Being a Wallflower, _they were called. Patty didn't see the appeal in them, but Maka just about fainted.

Maka got Soul, which was odd, because she hadn't tampered with the names. She bought him a book, half as a joke and half because she thought he'd like it. She folded a CD coupon inside the first page. And the next week she bought him a pair of giant sunglasses, this time completely as a joke, and hid a vinyl he'd been wanting into the back of his messy locker. It took him a few minutes to find it.

Soul got Liz. He made her two mixes of her favorite kinds of music and a couple of songs that she'd never heard. And then he made her a third mix which just had "Never Gonna Give You Up" and terrible covers of Christmas songs, just to watch her face. The fist week, he gave her a real one; the second week, he left her that one. The very next day, after having a good laugh, he left the second one (the real second one) in her locker without so much as an apology. (She liked the mixes, though.)

Liz got Black Star, and internally despaired. She bought him a mirror with the Sharpied inscription "now you can look at your conceited self all day!" for his first present. For his second, she got some fudge, and a good amount of cookies. And just for kicks, she bought him a hoodie. It was dark blue and had a star on the back and clashed with his hair in a horrible way, and she knew he'd like it. (The mirror, he threw, along with a loud "DON"T PLAY TRICKS ON THE GREAT BLACK STAR! GIVE ME MY REAL PRESENT!" Luckily, the mirror was cheap and plastic.)

Black Star got Kid, and cheated by asking Liz what to get. She shrugged and told him, "Look, anything that's symmetrical, he'll like."

Kid ended up getting a poster of Two-Face, straight from the Batman comics, as well as a drawing of a scalene triangle. He declared it his worst Christmas ever.

That is, until he was surprised by the most flawless, symmetrical paper snowflake he'd ever seen and Liz decided Black Star could be okay after all.

* * *

_A/N: Yay! Happy, super late Christmas fic!_

_Hope you guys like it. I had it about half done, and then I got lazy, then I finally finished. _

_I don't own Soul Eater. I would, however, appreciate reviews. Please R&R!_

_Much love, Ninjee_


	19. blow a kiss at the methane skies (AU)

"Looks like we got a code blue, baby girl."

_"Intruder alert! Intruder alert! Heeheeheeheehee!"_

"You know what to do."

_"Operation: Get This Little Fuck Off Our Territory in 3...2...1..."_

"Blast off."

* * *

There was a gun at his neck.

There was a _gun_ at his _neck._

"Try to run and I'll shoot." a voice said calmly. "What are you doing here in our turf?"

"Ooh, look at him, he's a fancy boy from up top." another voice giggled. "Looks like Kiddo did when he first showed up, huh, Sissy?"

"Absolutely right, baby girl. He's from the topside. Now, tell me, pretty boy. Who are you?"

"Soul." he said, not letting his voice shake. "My name's Soul Eater."

"Now, I know that's not true. But you're smart enough to keep some secrets, even at gunpoint, so I gotta give you props for that."

"Who are you?" he asked, wondering if she would answer.

"Liz Thompson." she said cheerfully.

"And 'm Patty." the other voice said. "So, pretty boy, where you from? Huh? Huh?"

"Topside, like you said."

"Ooh, this one's a smartie." Patty crowed delightedly.

"Never trust anybody." Liz said, sounding impressed. "Number one rule of bottomside. There's hope for you yet, kid."

"Glad to hear it. You gonna shoot me now?"

"Nah." Liz said nonchalantly. "We're gonna let you go." She lowed the gun and turned, and he could hear her heels clicking (one-two-one-two-one-two like a metronome) and he waited a second before saying something.

"Letting me go, huh?"

"Yeah."

"What if I don't have anywhere to go?" he asked, and he felt the feeling in the air shift.

"You a runaway, kid?"

"More of a walkout. But my old man's never gonna want to see my face again."

She walked over to where he was standing and he saw her face for the first time. She was tall and caramel blonde, blue-eyed and tan and all kinds of sexy. She had on green cargo pants and a tank top that showed her stomach, a leather jacket and two silver bangles on each wrist. She had a gun in her hand and another strapped to her waist, and there were probably a million bombs and tools and shit in her belt.

Like some twisted kinda superhero, he thought, some weird, bottomside batman.

She snapped her fingers. "Patty-girl, cme're."

Another girl skips up, in black cargo pants with lots of pockets like Liz's, and a pink T-shirt and a light brown coat. She's got the same eyes as Liz-maybe they're sisters, it would explain a lot-but her hair's lighter and shorter. "Helloooo!" she says cheerfully, and Liz smirks at him.

"You need a place to go, kid?"

"Depends. And why would you trust me so quick, anyway?"

"I can always kill you later. But we always need extra hands."

"With what?"

Her eyes sparkle. "_Viva la revolution_, Soul Eater."

* * *

There's hundreds of kids in their hideout-well, not theirs, it's run by some guy who they call "Blackstar" but that's gotta be a nickname or something, it's a more ridiculous name than "Soul Eater", but with him at least the "Soul" part is real. But, yeah, there's hundreds of kids and they're all staring at him, and he stiffens up and glares at them because fuck it, he doesn't _like_ when people stare at him. He knows he's a freak but he doesn't like it being pointed out, thanks very much.

Liz and Patty lead him into a room off to the side where there's three other kids-no, wait, _six_ other kids, there's one sitting in a corner and two sitting next to the kid in the corner whispering furiously at him.

"Liz! Patty!" a voice said gratefully, and Patty flung herself into a skinny kid's arms. He's got black hair and two guns at his hips just like Liz and Patty do, black dress pants and black shoes and a button down shirt with the sleeves rolled up, black suspenders, the whole secret agent thing. He spun Patty around once and then set her down, and she kissed the tip of his nose.

"You gotta stop worryin' about us all the time, moron, we were fine for forever before you showed up."

"Can't help it, you know I can't." is all he said, and Liz holstered her gun after making a quick gesture and now he's got a knife at his neck instead of a gun, and he watched with mild interest as Liz kissed the skinny James Bond and then sat down on a worn-out couch.

"Who is he?" said a voice from behind him, the person holding the knife. Another girl, unusually sweet sounding for a gang or whatever the hell they were. But whatever.

"Calls himself Soul Eater. Not his real name, of course."

"I hope you gave him fake names, too..." James Bond said, glancing over at the two sisters.

"Nope." Liz said, popping the 'p' and grinning. "Come on, baby, you know I'm a no-good liar."

"Security, Liz." he said irritably, and Liz rolled her eyes.

"He's a walkout from topside, Kid, like you. He needs help."

"You're from topside?" Soul asked without actually meaning to.

"I was. But my father spoke out against topside's protocols and they organized a 'gas leak' in our home. I managed to get out, but he was trapped. Liz and Patty found me after a few days of wandering the streets alone and now I am no longer from topside and I never will be again."

There was a hard conviction in the kid's voice.

"I am Death the Kid, by the way." James Bond said.

"Come on, and you were messing with me about _my_ name? That shit's obviously fake."

"I'm not who I was anymore, and I doubt you are either." Death the Kid said smoothly. "It's obvious that coming from topside to bottomside would require a new name as well." His face twisted into a sad smile. "My father and mother are both dead. I thought this name quite appropriate."

"Right." the girl's voice from behind him said. "Blackstar, what do we do with him?"

A kid-and he's definitely only a kid, he can't be older than eighteen and somehow that seems doubtful-but then again, they're all kids, really, even if he's nineteen and he thinks the rest of them are around that age, they're all kids-a kid with spiky hair dyed bright blue and a navy blue hoodie and black cargo shorts, knives stuffed into his belt, knives and some bombs-a kid looked up and grinned, and it's uncommonly cheerful.

"We keep him, duh!" he said. "He could come in handy. And he needs a home, right?"

"Yeah." Soul said. "Thanks, man?"

The end has risen up in a question because he really is not fucking sure in they're letting him go or killing him or what.

"No problem." Blackstar said, grinning still. "But if you betray us, I'll bust your head open. Clear?"

"Yeah."

The knife came off his back and a girl stepped over and held out her hand. She's tall and has black hair and really pale skin and _great_ boobs, and she's gotta be like twenty or something, but she threw a glance at Blackstar when Soul's eyes flicked to her chest, and Soul wanted to punch something because really, some people have all the fucking luck. But he shook her hand anyway.

"Welcome to the team." she said, and he found out he was glad to be there.

"Wait, what?"

He turned around and there was this skinny little girl standing there, with her arm around another super skinny-Girl? Boy? Fuck if he knows-looking really confused.

"Maka, this is Soul." Liz said airily. "He's new."

She narrowed her eyes at him and he narrowed his eyes back, and that's where it begins.

* * *

He learns soon after that the skinny little girl is actually nineteen like him, she just has really small tits.

Not that she's not hot or anything, (something he also realizes, because she shouldn't be allowed to wear short skirts like that with her _legs_) there is just not much up there.

He also figures out that she can knock someone out with a well-placed book to the head (this is after she bumps into him once and he responds with a snide _Watch it, Tiny Tits)._

Her name is Maka Albarn and she was born in bottomside, in the dirt and fear and pain, and he's Soul and he was born in topside with all the rights and privileges and rules and regulations and the nonexistent freedom. He can't get used to just walking around in their turf, like he can do whatever the fuck he wants and the cops won't come at him.

It's really, really fucking weird.

But he gets used to it pretty quick.

* * *

_"3...2...1..." _

Maka's counting down over his com. Today's a turf war, and he's got bombs and knives strapped to his belt and they're trying to hold back Asura's gang for a while until backup gets here. It's two months after he first showed up.

When she ends up punching Asura, leader of the gang, square in the face and then delivering a stiff "_stay the hell off our turf, you bastards"_ he shakes his head and laughs in awe once they're far enough away and he's never been this proud of anyone.

She looks at him sort of shyly, and he grins at her and says "_that was the coolest thing I've ever seen" _and she loosens up and smiles.

* * *

The first time he kisses her is after she goes missing for a few days and it turns out she was kidnapped by Asura as payback. He marches into their hidey-hole and rescues her, and then the second they're safe and in their own turf he stops and yells at her.

She looks so hurt. And then she starts to yell at him, too, _"I can take care of myself, you know, you didn't have to come and get me, I was handling it!"_

and he says_ "I did have to go and get you, you fucking idiot, Maka"  
_

and she just glares at him and starts to turn away but then he grabs her shoulders and he's kissing the life out of her because fuck it, he's in love with Maka Albarn, has been for months, and he was fucking worried about her.

And when he pulls away, breathing hard, she looks a little stunned and says "_oh_" and then she's kissing him again and her hands go into his hair and it takes a while before either of them can focus enough to get back to base.

* * *

She's the only one who knows who he is, that he's an _Evans_ and he plays the _piano_, and once she helps him break into an instrument store topside just so he can sit there for a few hours in the middle of the night and play. She watches him the whole time, and only looks away when she has to override some firewall or bit of security.

* * *

They don't know if their plans will succeed. They believe in it and themselves, and in the fact that there is something _wrong_ and seriously so. But they don't know what's gonna happen tomorrow, or the next day, or if their revolution will succeed or fail.

But they're gonna take down topside or die trying. They're gonna set the world right.

"_I love you._" he tells her, the night before their plan is put into action, a year after he showed up here and joined this gang.

She smiles, her hand curling into his. "_I love you, too."_

He hums a melody in her ear and she laughs.

* * *

_A/N: This slowly turned into snippets. Oops? But I'm just glad to be updating again. I had no inspiration and too much stuff with school for a loooong time._

_But I saw Les Miserables a few nights ago, and that combined with the American Idiot soundtrack (Broadway version) my head's been filled with revolutions and guns and dark places in a city and gangs and drugs...so I wrote it out. Hope you like it!  
_

_Les Miz is AMAZING, btw. You should all go and see it asap.  
_

_Anyway, I do not own, but I love reviews, they feed my writer soul. So please R&R!  
_

_Much love, Ninjee  
_


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